A bust of the Protestant reformer John Calvin has recently been unveiled in a park in Havana, Cuba, as a way to cap a year-long celebration of his 500th birthday.
Calvinism plays a role in the religious life of Cuba, in part because of over 25 years work of the Cuban Christian Reformed Church.
The Calvin celebrations were part of a Jubilee Year organized by the Presbyterian-Reformed Church of Cuba.
“More than being simply a set of historical and culture values, Protestantism continues to be a commitment to faithfulness before the face of God in the world,” explained Dr Isabelle Graessle, director of the International Museum of the Reformation in Geneva, Switzerland, speaking at the unveiling of the bust.
“We have unveiled Calvin’s bust. Now let us continue our happy duty to recapture spirituality for our time, and to respond courageously to today’s large theological issues,” Graessle declared.
The event, celebrated in a park located at the intersection of Egido and Desamparados Streets in ‘Old Havana’, featured representatives from Cuban church and political life along with a group of invitees and many spectators.
“There is something profound about this, because the ecumenical churches in Cuba (of which the Christian Reformed Church of Cuba has been a leader for 25-plus years) have gained a certain grudging respect and a significant space for Protestant believers in that nation,” said the Rev. James Dekker, a former CRC missionary in Latin America who also worked for a time in Cuba. He is now a pastor in Canada.
The bust of Calvin, sculpted by Francois Bonnot, who was also present, was unveiled by Dr Ofelia Miriam Ortega, vice-president for the Latin American and the Caribbean members of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and also president of the same region for the World Council of Churches.
During the ceremony, Ortega read a letter from the President and General Secretary of WARC, both highlighting the significance of this event during the (Presbyterian-Reformed Church’s) Jubilee Year.
Three elements of Calvin’s legacy were emphasised: the gift of unity and communion; the need for an alliance for economic justice and life on earth, and the priority of peaceful living along with respect for the creation.
In her speech, Ortega commented: “Often Havana has been likened to Calvin’s Geneva. In both places children and youth study and work; school books are handed down as the students finish their courses. The poor become the privileged recipients of the church’s economic and educational efforts.”
“As theologian, educator, pastor and economist, Calvin lived in a historical moment similar to ours, because a new historical era was approaching. Perhaps as a product of his intuition Calvin cultivated a consummate ecumenical spirit, anticipating by four centuries the current ecumenical movement.”
Dr Reinerio Arce, Jr., rector of the Evangelical Seminary of Matanzas, received the words of thanks from WARC and the United Reformed Church of Scotland, which donated the bust of Calvin.
Similarly, Arce thanked Bonnot, the sculptor, as well as Graessle, the director of the International Museum of the Reformation, the Cuban authorities who granted placement of the bust, the Cuban Council of Churches, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Centre and the Evangelical Seminary - all co-sponsors of the project.
“Calvin isn’t only a person of faith; he is a person of history whose ideas and work have profoundly influenced modernity to the present day,” said Leal Spencer, official historian of the city of Havana. “He had a social reach not only for his city, but for the entire Reformed world.”
Therefore, added Spencer, “in the heart of this historic walled centre of the city, where there are many testimonies to faith, this expression of ecumenical Christianity also sets forth the highest aspirations of human beings.”
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