Dutch Reformed Church

The main Protestant church in the Netherlands. In theology it follows Calvinism and in government it resembles Presbyterianism. It was first organized during the revolt of the Low Countries against Spanish rule in the 16th century.

The Reformed Church spread wherever the Dutch colonized or emigrated, with major centres in Indonesia, the West Indies, Sri Lanka, and South Africa, where the church gave theological support to apartheid in the 1930s and was expelled from the world community of Dutch Reformed Churches. From the mid-1980s it took steps to distance itself from apartheid and to seek integration between the black and white churches that had been set up.