In light of this specific example and the generally widespread practice of priestly concubinage in the late Middle Ages, it is not surprising that one of the first reforms initiated in the Swiss Reformation was the right of the clergy to marry.
Zwingli married Anna in a public ceremony in shortly before the birth of their child. In the Zurich magistrates instituted a marriage ordinance mandating clergy living in concubinage either to end the relationship or to marry.
After he recovered, Zwingli fought for a simple theology: If it can't be found in the Bible, don't believe it and don't do it. In , Zwingli publicly married widow Anna Reinhard, who had three children. Zwingli said he had married her in but kept it secret to avoid backlash; others said they had only been living together. The couple eventually had four children together. In , Zurich continued reforms, abolishing the mass and replacing it with a simpler service.
As Luther was leading reform in Germany in the s, Zwingli was at the front in Switzerland, which was made up of small city-states called cantons. Religious reform in Switzerland at that time was decided by local magistrates after they heard debates between the reformer and representatives of the Catholic church.
The magistrates were partial to reform. Ulrich Zwingli, city chaplain of Zurich, opposed clerical celibacy and fasting during Lent. His followers scandalously ate sausages in public to break the fast!
In , statues and paintings of Jesus Christ , Mary and saints were removed from local churches. The Bible was given priority over church law. To try to unify Switzerland and Germany under one religious system, Philip of Hesse convinced Zwingli and Luther to meet in Marburg in , in what came to be called the Marburg Colloquy. Unfortunately, the two reformers were at direct odds over what happened during the Lord's Supper.
Luther believed Christ's words, "This is my body" meant Jesus was actually present during the sacrament of communion. Zwingli said the phrase meant "This signifies my body", so that the bread and wine were only symbolic. They had agreed on many other doctrines during the conference, from the Trinity to justification by faith to the number of sacraments, but they could not come together on communion.
Luther reportedly refused to shake Zwingli's hand at the end of the meetings. Zwingli believed that many of the medieval doctrines of the Catholic Church had no basis in Scripture.
He also saw that in practice there was much abuse and corruption. Switzerland in Zwingli's day was receptive to reform, and he felt theology and the church should conform to the Bible as closely as possible.
Scripture, he believed, was the true authority:. This prayer of Ulrich Zwingli was eerily prophetic of how he would bravely meet his end:. Zwingli's reforms were well-received in a climate where several countries were trying to get out from under the still-powerful political control of the Catholic church. This political unrest led to alliances which pitted the Catholic cantons of Switzerland against its Protestant cantons.
In , the Catholic cantons attacked Protestant Zurich, which was overwhelmed and defeated at the Battle of Kappel. In the year , two prominent theologians of the Reformation, along with a cast of important colleagues from both sides, came face to face in the city of Marburg, Germany for a discussion. This meeting is known as the Marburg Colloquy. Those two prominent theologians were Dr. Ulrich Zwingli was born on January 1, in Wildhaus, Switzerland.
He received a Master of Arts degree from the University of Basel in Later in that same year, Zwingli was ordained a priest in Glarus, where he served for ten years. In , after a two year sabbatical, he took up parish duties in Zurich, where he became the chief reformer of the Swiss reformation. Zwingli was also heavily influenced by the Dutch humanist Erasmus, who had a rationalistic approach to Scripture.
As a citizen of the Republic of Zurich, Zwingli was adept in the ways of politics. He used his political prowess as a means to bring about his ideas for reformation. Zwingli, like his Roman Catholic counterparts, held that secular and ecclesiastical power went together.
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