The rising importance of the Reformed churches, and of Calvin, happened in the second phase of the Protestant Reformation, when evangelical churches began to form, after Martin Luther, another important Reformer, was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church. Calvin was a French exile in Geneva. He had signed the Lutheran Augsburg Confession in 1540, but his importance came from the Swiss Reformation. This was not Lutheran, but followed Huldrych Zwingli and then Calvin.