Zwingli

When studying the Protestant Reformation, the top two reformers that come to mind are Martin Luther and John Calvin. However, a third, and vitally important, reformer must also be remembered. Huldrych Zwingli lit the touchpaper of the Swiss Reformation and came to be the influential, yet short-lived, founder of the Reformed Protestant denomination. He started his religious career as a Catholic priest and died a martyr on the battlefield, defending Protestantism and having founded the Reformed Church in Zürich. Let's take a look at the life of Switzerland's first generation reformer.

Zwingli: Biography

Huldrych Zwingli was born into Catholicism but through his experiences of education and as a Catholic priest, he started to advocate reforms to the Catholic faith. Let's look at Zwingli's early life experiences and a timeline of his life to show how he started the Swiss Reformation.

Fig. 1 Painted portrait of Huldrych Zwingli.

Early Life

Zwingli was born in 1484 and received a rich university education, studying theology at the universities in Vienna and Basel. After he was ordained as a priest, Zwingli served as a chaplain for the Swiss Mercenary Army in Glarus.

Switzerland engaged in the Battle of Marignano with France in 1515 as part of Switzerland's expansion ambitions into Italian territory. The battle resulted in 20,000 deaths, the defeat of the Swiss Army, and the 1516 'Perpetual Peace' treaty with France to never engage in conflict again. The treaty marked the beginnings of Switzerland's position of neutrality, but the mercenary army would still fight other countries' conflicts. It was the bloody conflict at Marignano that led Zwingli to oppose the mercenary system in his preaching.

Zwingli's views on the mercenaries caused disruption in Glarus, so he moved to Einsiedeln in 1516 and began to preach parts of his reformation ideas. Zwingli was a skilful debater, which earned him favour with the papacy. Following this, Zwingli was appointed the people's priest of the main Zürich church, the Grossmünster, in 1518.

Zwingli and the Reformation

The Swiss Reformation began in the 1520s with a series of events that were orchestrated by Huldrych Zwingli. Let's take a look at his starring role in initiating reform in Switzerland.

The Affair of the Sausages

Christoph Froschauer owned a printing house in Zürich during the 1520s, and, as a devoted follower and friend of Zwingli, published many of his works. In 1522, Froschauer held a gathering of Zwinglians to eat meat during the season of Lent. Eating meat was forbidden by the Catholic Church, but Zwingli argued that there was no mention of the fast in the Bible and so it should not be enforced by law.

In a show of liberty, the gathering at the printing house ate dried sausages and used Froschauer's printing to get word out of their rebellion. Zwingli was present at the occasion, but did not eat the meat. Those who did eat were jailed by the Church. Zwingli defended their actions from the pulpit in Grossmünster, and the rebels were eventually released.

Fig. 2 The Affair of the Sausages kickstarted the Reformation movement in Zurich. Amidst the rising fervour for Reformation, the partakers in the Affair pulled down a cross in another act of Protestant defiance in Zurich in 1523.

This first act of rebellion against the Catholic Church was Zwingli's example of challenging the laws that the Church imposed on society that were not rooted in scripture. Zwingli was advocating for a divine law which could be found in the Bible rather than based on papal or bishop authority.

The 67 Artikels

Following the growing support for Zwingli's reforms, he wrote and published his 67 Artikels in 1523 during the First Zürich Disputation. It was a similar document to Martin Luther's 97 Theses from 1517, stating Zwingli's criticisms of Catholicism and stating his beliefs. The 67 Artikels laid the groundwork for the Swiss Reformed Church under Zwingli and led to reforms to Zürich life. Zwingli worked to abolish mass religious imagery in Zürich from his position as people's priest. By 1525, Zürich had officially adopted Zwingli's proposals and became the first Reformed canton of the Swiss Confederacy.

Zwingli and Religion

So, what did Zwingli's Reformed Protestant religion look like in 16^th century Switzerland? At the First Zürich Disputation in January 1523, Zwingli was invited to join the Catholic representatives of Zürich to discuss his reforms. It was at this meeting that Zwingli announced and published his 67 Artikels that advocated a strict adherence to Biblical scripture as authority rather than Catholic bishops or the Pope. Zwingli won the disputation, and the Zürich city council allowed him to continue his method of preaching using scripture.

Later that year, Zwingli was invited to the Second Disputation regarding the religious direction of Zürich's churches. He invited another Reformed priest, Leo Judd, to the proceedings. Judd argued for the abolition of religious iconography, such as images, stained-glass, statues, or other potentially idolatrous imagery. Combined with Zwingli's rejection of Mass, other Catholic traditions, and transubstantiation, the Council agreed mostly with Zwingli's measures but implicated them gradually, allowing churches to decide on the destruction of their statues etc.

Fig. 3 The inside of a Reformed Church is very plain to avoid worshipping false images. The writing reads, 'Blessed are those who hear and keep the Word of God,' referencing the strict following of the Bible as the only authority on Christianity.

This marked the beginning of the Reformed Church in Zürich, which took hold with the citizens' rejection of both Christmas and Easter Catholic rites after the Disputations. Zwingli had managed to reform the canton, which now placed scripture as the highest form of Christian authority. It also allowed him to apply his hopes of changing Zürich into a society whereby the Bible is the sole authority for both religious and secular issues.

Zwingli's Beliefs

Similar to Martin Luther's reforms in Germany, Zwingli agreed that the Catholic Church required reforming due to its gradual degradation through corruption. In particular, Reformers wished to address the sale of indulgences by the Catholic Church, one of the key sources of corruption that was permitted by the Papacy.

Zwingli's beliefs proposed reforms to both Swiss religious practices and societal practices in general. Let's look at how Zwingli wanted to change the Church.

• Follow the principle of sola scriptura whereby the Bible and religious scripture is the sole authority for Christians.

• The Eucharist (breaking of bread and drinking of wine a.k.a. Mass) is a "commemorative rite" rather than the actual transubstantiation of the bread and wine into Jesus' body and blood. Zwingli believed Mass should be a simple representation rather than a miracle.

• Zwingli believed that the clergy should be allowed to marry and not be celibate, as many broke this rule anyway.

• Zwingli also believed that the canton government ruled through divine right. This meant that after Zürich adopted his reforms, the state government and the church merged, and Christian conduct was expected through all areas of society.

• Another of Zwingli's beliefs was in the dissolution of the mercenary system, which Reformed cantons adopted.

Luther and Zwingli

Both Martin Luther and Huldrych Zwingli were active at similar times in Germany and Switzerland respectively. A German prince, Philip of Hesse, was converted to protestantism by the preachings of Luther and corresponded with Zwingli about uniting the Protestant faith in Europe to oppose the Catholic Habsburgs. To unite the faith, which was fragmenting into denominations through slight differences of theology and practices, Philip of Hesse hosted the Colloquy of Marburg in 1529. It was a showdown between Lutheranism and Zwinglianism to discuss the Reformation, and had the aim of uniting the German and Swiss reformers.

Fig. 4 This painting depicts the Colloquy of Marburg. After the Diet of Speyer in April 1529 concluded in a majority against the Reformation, Philip of Hesse was determined to unite the Protestant churches to form an alliance against their potential persecution by Catholics. The Colloquy failed to fully unite Luther and Zwingli as Protestant denominations continued to form throughout Europe.

The two protestant powerhouses agreed on 14 of the 15 Articles of Marburg. However, the fifteenth was contested and regarded the presence of Christ during the sacrament of Eucharist. Zwingli believed it was a purely symbolic event, whilst Luther argued that Jesus was spiritually present during the activity. This disagreement led to the irreversible split with Lutheranism and Zwingli's Reformed Protestant Church, and characterised how the Protestant denominations continued to fracture throughout the world rather than unite against Catholic oppression.

Zwingli's Significance and Legacy

Huldrych Zwingli is known as the progenitor of the Swiss Reformation, and successfully established his Reformed Protestant faith in 4 of the 13 Swiss cantons (Zürich, Basel, Bern, Schaffhausen), whilst also spreading into other coexistent cantons of Appenzell and Glarus. He created a loyal following and used his connections with the likes of printer Christoph Froschauer to spread his ideas of Reformation throughout the country. Froschauer published Zwingli's Swiss German translation of the Bible in the year of Zwingli's death, in 1531. By using the country's language, the so-called Zürich Bible became the popular common book for Swiss Reformed churches at the time.

Unfortunately, Zwingli's legacy within the Reformed Protestant church is often tarnished by his aggressive zeal for a United Reformed Switzerland. He was prepared to forcibly convert Catholics and unite Reformed cantons to invade Catholic cantons (as was seen with The Kappel Wars). Zwingli's ambitions to dictate a Protestant ethic throughout the whole of Swiss society led to his downfall, and he was killed on the battlefield of the Second Kappel War in 1531.

Fig. 5 Heinrich Bullinger succeeded Zwingli as the head of the Swiss Reformation.

However, Zwingli's close associate Heinrich Bullinger succeeded him as both people's priest of Grossmünster in Zürich and head of the Swiss Reformation. Bullinger introduced better moderation in light of Zwingli's aggression, and managed to create an alliance with French Reformer John Calvin (who was leading Reformation movements in Geneva at the time). Once Calvin adopted Bullinger's Helvetic Confessions, the Reformed faith spread across Europe, uniting many churches through Calvin's connections.

It was Zwingli's proposals that kickstarted the Swiss Reformation, but it was his successors who managed to export a better strategy to spread the Reformed Protestant faith across the globe.