Has anybody besides myself and at least one other poster here read the history on Servetus and Calvin's actual role in this?
Yes. I was blessed to study Church history in general and John Calvin in particular with Dr. Scott Manetsch, a noted Calvin scholar, here at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.
There are many things to consider when speaking of the affair between Calvin and Servetus. Here are five:
1) There were three classes of people in Geneva at the time of Calvin—bourgeois, citizens, and aristocrats. Only citizens and aristocrats had the right to vote; the bourgeois were simply foreigners who were kept for business. John Calvin was none of these until after the Servetus event. Even then, he was only granted bourgeois status; he was never a full citizen of Geneva.
2) Because of #1 above, Calvin had zero political authority. In fact, most of the time, the magistrates gave him nothing but trouble. He could hardly make decisions for the church in Geneva, for which he was responsible. For example, he wanted to have communion every Sunday, but the magistrates would not let him. They won.
3) Calvin was given absolutely no authority to administer any legal punishment to anyone at any time. He could not even physically punish those whom he and his consistory were putting under Church discipline. The magistrates had sole control over corporal punishment. The worst he could do was excommunicate someone, and then turn to the magistrates for banishment.
4) Servetus came into Geneva against the warning of Calvin, because Calvin knew that if Servetus were found (which, of course he would be; he was a known heretic across Europe), he would certainly be executed. Calvin had, in fact, tried to meet with Servetus outside of Geneva under cover (meeting with Servetus was risking his own life) to try to convert him. Anyone who says Calvin was out to get Servetus is delusional or utterly uninformed. If anything, it was the other way around. Calvin sent a copy of his
Institutes to Servetus, and Servetus sent it back with blasphemies and obscenities scribbled on it; after Calvin risked his own life to meet with Servetus to try to convert him, Servetus was a no-show; and Servetus, as if a medieval suicide bomber, appeared in Geneva, and made no attempt of hiding his presence in service which Calvin was conducting. One wonders if Servetus, knowing he hadn't much longer to go given his infamy, decided to end his life in Geneva in hopes that the affair would taint Calvin's name. One has to wonder...
5) Once Servetus' presence was (very quickly) discovered in Geneva, the whole affair was entirely out of Calvin's hands; the magistrates took over from there. Calvin did, once again, risk his own life (because the magistrates already had their eyes on him) by going in to Servetus' prison cell to, once again, try to convert him. This, of course, failed. As has already been pointed out, he even went to the magistrates to try to have the method of execution lessened (which was, again, a bold move in medieval/Reformation Europe, as it could be seen as sedition to advocate in any way for a heretic), but this did not work, either. In the end, the Genevan magistrates were the ones who ended the heretic's life; Calvin had absolutely
nothing to do with it. Anyone, therefore, who ever says, "
Calvin killed Servetus," is already exposing their hand—and it is an uninformed one.