John Calvin

About John Calvin

John Calvin (1509–1564) was a pivotal French theologian, pastor, and reformer during the Protestant Reformation. His profound influence earned him the #402 rank in historical importance, largely due to his systematic theology, most notably laid out in his Institutes of the Christian Religion. Calvin's work became the foundation for Reformed churches worldwide, establishing rigorous doctrines concerning predestination and the sovereignty of God that shaped the religious and political landscape of early modern Europe and later, North America.

In the context of modern internet attention, Calvin receives an estimated 703K annualized Wikipedia views in 2025. This places his attention roughly on par with his historical importance, evidenced by an Attention Gap of approximately 1x. This is a relatively high level of engagement compared to many other historically significant figures, but it is markedly less than contemporary religious figures like Ruhollah Khomeini (#679 importance) who garnered 2.4M views, or even figures of lesser historical rank like Bob Dylan (#736 importance) who achieved 12.0M views. For comparison, Louis XVI (#95 importance) only reached 71K views, indicating that while Calvin’s stature secures him significant online visibility, the digital sphere prioritizes different types of figures.

The data does show a slight softening in current interest, with the 2025 Momentum metric falling by -14% between Q1 and Q3, despite a positive Year-over-Year change of +15.5%.