The Reformed Church of France (French: Église réformée de France, ERF) was the main Protestant denomination in France with a Calvinist orientation that could be traced back directly to John Calvin. In 2013, the Church merged with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in France to form the United Protestant Church of France.
The church was a member of the Protestant Federation of France (Fédération protestante de France), the World Communion of Reformed Churches and the World Council of Churches.
The Huguenots (/ˈhjuːɡənɒts/ HEW-gə-nots, UK also /-noʊz/ -nohz; French: [yɡ(ə)no]) are a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed (Calvinist) tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Besançon Hugues, was in common use by the mid-16th century. Huguenot was frequently used in reference to those of the Reformed Church of France from the time of the Protestant Reformation. By contrast, the Protestant populations of eastern France, in Alsace, Moselle, and Montbéliard, were mainly Lutherans.
In his Encyclopedia of Protestantism, Hans Hillerbrand wrote that on the eve of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in 1572, the Huguenot community made up as much as 10% of the French population. By 1600, it declined to 7–8%, and was reduced further late in the century after the return of persecution under Louis XIV, who instituted the Dragonnades to forcibly convert Protestants, and then finally revoked all Protestant rights in his Edict of Fontainebleau of 1685. In 1686, the Protestant population sat at 1% of the population.
Evangelical Lutheran Church in France (French: Église évangélique luthérienne en France) was a Lutheran denomination in France until its 2013 merger with the Reformed Church of France to form the United Protestant Church of France. It had 100,000 members at the time of the merger.
It covered all of France except for Alsace and Moselle. In those areas the Protestant Church of Augsburg Confession of Alsace and Lorraine is the governing Lutheran denomination.
The United Protestant Church of France (French: Église protestante unie de France) is the main and largest Protestant church in France, created in 2013 through the unification of the Reformed Church of France and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of France. It is active in all parts of Metropolitan France apart from Alsace and Moselle, where the Union of Protestant Churches of Alsace and Lorraine is established. It has 250,000 members and its orientation is both Calvinist and Lutheran, mainly in that it incorporates both kinds of parishes throughout the country. Ordination of women and blessings of same-sex marriages are allowed. The church believes abortion may be allowable under certain circumstances.