British Calvinists: John Greenwood (c. 1550-1593)

John Greenwood (c. 1550-1593) was a separatist Puritan. He graduated form Corpus Christi College, Cambridge in 1578. He then was ordained and minsitered in Wyam, Leicestershire until 1585 when he left the established church.

He was good friends with Henry Barrowe and they were executed together in 1593 for their separatist ecclesiastical views. Greenwood was an undergraduate at Cambridge during the Thomas Cartwright controversy. 

Greenwood was the leader of the London separatists. He was ordained into the Church of England by Thomas Cooper, the bishop of Lincoln, but he later renounced his ordination. 

He was imprisoned in 1586 and spent most of the rest of his life in gaol. With Barrowe he wrote a number of books and tracts from prison, they were both hanged at Tyburn in 1593.

Both Barrowe and Greenwood are regarded as the pioneers of Congregationalism.