Answer:
A. Holland
Explanation:
While Lutheranism was largely confined to parts of Germany and to Scandinavia, Calvinism spread into England, Scotland, France, the Netherlands, the English-speaking colonies of North America, and parts of Germany and central Europe. This expansion began during Calvin’s lifetime and was encouraged by him. Religious refugees poured into Geneva, especially from France during the 1550s as the French government became increasingly intolerant but also from England, Scotland, Italy, and other parts of Europe into which Calvinism had spread. Calvin welcomed them, trained many of them as ministers, sent them back to their countries of origin to spread the Gospel, and then supported them with letters of encouragement and advice. Geneva thus became the centre of an international movement and a model for churches elsewhere. John Knox, the Calvinist leader of Scotland, described Geneva as “the most perfect school of Christ that ever was on the earth since the days of the Apostles.”
Calvinism was immediately popular and was appealing across geographic and social boundaries. In France it was attractive primarily to the nobility and the urban upper classes, in Germany it found adherents among both burghers and princes, and in England and the Netherlands it made converts in every social group. In the Anglo-Saxon world, Calvinist notions found embodiment in English Puritanism, whose ethos proved vastly influential in North America beginning in the 17th century. It seems likely, therefore, that Calvinism’s appeal was based on its ability to explain disorders of the age afflicting all classes and to provide comfort by its activism and doctrine.
