William Farel

William Farel

William Farel (1489 – 13 September 1565), Guilhem Farel or Guillaume Farel (French: [gijom faʁɛl]), was a French evangelist, Protestant reformer and a founder of the Calvinist Church in the Principality of Neuchâtel, in the Republic of Geneva, and in Switzerland in the Canton of Bern and the (then occupied by Bern) Canton of Vaud. He is most often remembered for having persuaded John Calvin to remain in Geneva in 1536, and for persuading him to return there in 1541, after their expulsion in 1538. They influenced the government of Geneva to the point that it became the "Protestant Rome", where Protestants took refuge and dissidents such as Catholics and unitarians were driven out, some were even killed for their beliefs. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of William Farel has received more than 193,949 page views. His biography is available in 24 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 23 in 2019). William Farel is the 957th most popular religious figure (down from 887th in 2019), the 1,444th most popular biography from France (down from 1,367th in 2019) and the 73rd most popular French Religious Figure.

Farell is most famous for his book The End of History and the Last Man, in which he argues that the end of the Cold War signaled the end of history and the final victory of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.