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 rest, and there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over "all", does not cry: 'Mine!'" God continually re-creates the universe through acts of grace. God's acts are necessary to ensure the continued existence of creation. Without his direct activity creation would self-destruct." Kuyper's political ideals were orthodox-Protestant and anti-revolutionary. The concept of sphere sovereignty was very important for Kuyper. He rejected the popular sovereignty of France in which all rights originated with the individual, and the state-sovereignty of Germany in which all rights derived from the state.