HELVETIC CONFESSIONS, the name of two documents expressing the common belief of the reformed churches of Switzer land. The first, known also as the Second Confession of Basel, was drawn up at that city in 1536 by Henry Bullinger and others. The Second Helvetic Confession was written by Bullinger in 1562 and revised in 1564 as a private exercise. It came to the notice of the elector palatine Friedrich III., who had it translated into German and published. It gained a favourable hold on the Swiss churches, who had found the First Confession too short and too Lutheran. It was adopted by the Reformed Church not only throughout Switzerland but in Scotland (1566), Hungary France ('571), Poland (1578), and next to the Heidel berg Catechism (q.v.) is the most generally recognized Confession of the Reformed Church.
See L. Thomas, La Confession helvetique (Geneva, 1853) ; P. Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, i. 390-42o, iii. 234-306; Muller, Die Bekennt nisschriften der reformierten Kirche (Leipzig, 1903) ; W. A. Curtis, art. "Confessions," in Hastings, Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, vol. iii. p. 86o-61.