Zwingli, Huldreich or Ulrich, Latin Ulricus Zuinglius 1484-1531
Swiss reformer

Born in Wildhaus, St Gall, he studied at Bern, Vienna and Basle, and was ordained in 1506. He taught himself Greek, and twice went as field-chaplain with the Glarus mercenaries to war in Italy, and took part in the battles of Novara (1513) and Marignano (1515). Transferred in 1516 to Einsiedeln, whose Black Virgin was a great resort of pilgrims, he made no secret of his contempt for such superstition. He was elected preacher at the Grossm�nster in Zurich (1518), and roused the council not to admit within the city gates Bernhardin Samson, a seller of indulgences. He preached the gospel boldly, and stopped Zurich joining (1521) the other cantons in their alliance with France. The Bishop of Constance sent his vicar-general (1523), but he could not stop the city adopting the Reformed doctrines as set forth in Zwingli's 67 theses. A second disputation followed (1523), with the result that images and the mass were swept away. On Easter Sunday 1525 he dispensed the sacrament in both kinds, and the Reformation spread widely over Switzerland. Zwingli first made public his views on the Lord's Supper in 1524. At Marburg in 1529 he conferred with other Protestant leaders, and there disagreed with Martin Luther over the Eucharist, a dispute which eventually split the Protestant Church. He rejected every form of local or corporeal presence, whether by transubstantiation or consubstantiation. The progress of the Reformation aroused bitter hatred in the Forest Cantons, five of them formed an alliance (1528), Zurich declared war (1529) on account of the burning alive of a Protestant pastor seized on neutral territory, and in October 1531, the Forest Cantons made a sudden dash on Zurich with 8,000 men, to be met at Cappel by 2,000, including Zwingli. The men of Zurich were completely defeated, with Zwingli among the dead. Zwingli preached the Reformed doctrines as early as 1516, the year before the appearance of Luther's theses. He regarded original sin as a moral disease rather than as punishable sin or guilt. He maintained the salvation of unbaptized infants, and he believed in the salvation of such virtuous heathens as Socrates, Plato and Pindar. On predestination he was as Calvinistic as John Calvin. With less fire and power than Luther, he was the most open-minded and liberal of the Reformers. Zwingli's Opera fill four folios (1545). The chief is the Commentarius de vera et falsa religione (1525); the rest are mainly occupied with the exposition of scripture and controversies on the Eucharist, and other subjects.

Bibliography: G R Potter, Zwingli (1976)