Comments Elsewhere

pconroy thinks I am indeed being dense: “as surely you know where the reformation started and where its principal exponents came from”

I’m well aware of how the Reformation worked and where the hot spots were. But that’s not the claim that I was responding to. I was responding to your claim that “This vast area is predominantly Protestant today as a result.” I don’t think the data bears that out.

While we’re on the topic, though, I think you are in fact mistaken to claim that “they [are] all in the core of the Celtic Christian sphere”. Most of them are actually on the periphery: in Moravia, Wittenberg, and Switzerland, with the south of France coming on strong later. The Protestant countries in the “core” were either notably moderate in their ardor for Reform (England) or else following in the wake of Switzerland and France (Scotland, the Netherlands).

And yes, nearly all the Protestant countries in Europe are on your list. But that shouldn’t be surprising. Protestantism was a phenomenon within the Western Church, and you named nearly every country in Western and central Europe. If you go much further east from the sphere you set out, you are in the Eastern Church’s sphere of influence, and if you go much further west, you fall in the Atlantic Ocean.

Excluding some tiny principalities, the only Western Church countries you missed were Portugal, Spain, Austria, Poland, Hungary, Croatia, Norway, and Sweden. And of those 6, two are overwhelmingly Protestant as well.