A bust of Protestant reformer John Calvin was recently unveiled in a park in Havana, Cuba, as a way to cap a year-long celebration of Calvin’s 500th birthday. Calvinism plays a role in the religious life of Cuba in part because of the more-than-25-year 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 a set of historical and culture values, Protestantism continues basically to be commitment, faithfulness and a presence before the face of God in the world,” said Dr. Isabelle Graessle, director of the International Museum of the Reformation in Geneva, Switzerland, at the unveiling of the bust.

“We’ve unveiled Calvin’s bust, but let us continue our happy duty to recapture spirituality in our time, to respond courageously to today’s large theological issues,” Graessle said. This event, celebrated in a park located at the intersection of Egido and Desamparados Streets in “Old Havana,” included 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 grudging respect and significant room for Protestant believers in that nation,” says 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 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 emphasized—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 said, “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 as a new historical era was approaching. Perhaps as a product of his intuition—among his many virtues—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. Center and the Evangelical Seminary—all co-sponsors of the project.

“Calvin isn’t only a personage of faith; he is a personage of history whose idea and work profoundly have influenced modernity to the present,” 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, said Spencer, “in the heart of this historic walled center of the city, where there are many testimonies to faith, this expression of ecumenical Christianity also expresses the highest aspirations of human desire.”

Aymara Cepeda, Communications Office of the Council of Churches of Cuba, wrote the press release for this story. The release was translated from Spanish by James Dekker