Reformed Churches, a term employed in what may be called a conventional sense, not to designate all the churches of the Reformation, but those in which the Calvinistic doctrines and still more the Calvinistic polity prevail, in contradistinction to the Lutheran (q.v.). The influence of Calvin proved more powerful than that of Zwingli, which, however, no doubt considerably modified the views prevalent in many of these churches. The Reformed Churches are very generally known on the continent of Europe as the Calvinistic Churches, whilst the name Protestant Church is in some countries almost equivalent to that of Lutheran. One chief distinction of all the Reformed Churches is their doctrine of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, characterised by the utter rejection not only of transubstantiation, but of consubstantiation; and it was on this point, mainly, that the controversy between the Lutherans and the Reformed was long carried on. See LORD'S SUPPER, and SACRAMENT. They are also unanimous in their rejection of the use of crucifixes, and of many ceremonies retained by the Lutherans. Churches belonging to the Reformed group are those of England (in some respects) and Scotland, some churches of various parts of Germany, the Protestant Churches of France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Hungary, Poland, &c., with those in America which have sprung from them.
See the articles CONFESSIONS OF FAITH, ARTICLES, PRAYER-BOOK, LUTHER, ZWINGLI, CALVIN, KNOX; and works on the distinctions between Lutheran and Reformed Churches by Schweizer (1856), Hagenbach (1857), Merle d'Aubigné (1861), Schneckenburger (1855).