Evangelical and Reformed Church hymnody, USA

German Reformed Immigration and Organization German Reformed immigrants came to America largely from the Palatinate in south-west Germany on the Rhine River. There, in 1562 at Heidelberg University, Caspar Olevianus (1536-1587) and Zacharias Ursinus (1534-1583) prepared the Heidelberg Catechism and the Palatinate Liturgy. This area received the Reformation about the time of Luther’s death (1546), became a seedbed of religious rivalry, and especially after the beginning of the Thirty Years’ War in 1618 its confessional diversity was ravaged by war. At the end of the 17th century Louis XIV (1638-1715) devastated it, and wars in the 18th century caused many Palatines to leave. By 1780 there...