History of religion in the Netherlands forbidden to hold religious processions in all provinces except for Noord Brabant and Limburg. The Netherlands was ruled by a liberal Calvinist elite, which dominated the bureaucracy and the Dutch Reformed Church, leading to splits. In 1834, led by Rev. Hendrik de Cock, a group seceded from the Dutch Reformed Church in what was known as the "Afscheiding". Roughly fifty years later, in 1886, another group of orthodox Calvinists, led by Abraham Kuyper, split from the Dutch Reformed Church. In 1892, they founded the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands, one of the major neo-Calvinist denominations. Kuyper also organized a whole
Abraham Kuyper Party. In this programme he formulated the principle of antithesis, the conflict between the religious (Reformed and Catholics) and non-religious. In 1877, he left parliament because of problems with his health, suffering from overexertion. In 1878, Kuyper returned to politics, he led the petition against a new law on education, which would further disadvantage religious schools. This was an important impetus for the foundation of the Anti-Revolutionary Party (ARP) in 1879, of which Kuyper would be chairman between 1879 and 1905. He would be the undisputed leader of the party between 1879 and 1920. His followers gave him the nickname