Franciscus Gomarus

Franciscus Gomarus (1563–1641) was a strict Calvinist theologian, born at Bruges to parents who fled the Habsburg Netherlands for the Palatinate in 1578. He studied at Strasbourg, Cambridge and Heidelberg, and from 1587 pastored a Dutch Reformed congregation in Frankfurt until persecution dispersed it in 1593.

In 1594 he took the theology chair at Leiden, where after 1603 he led the opposition to Jacobus Arminius, defending unconditional predestination against the Remonstrants. At the Synod of Dort of 1618–1619 he was the foremost champion of orthodox Calvinism, and he remained an active theologian until his death in 1641.