Learn about Ulrich Zwingli and John Calvin. Explore their history, lives, and beliefs. Discover their impact on the history of religion and the Reformation.
Updated: 11/21/2023
Ulrich Zwingli & John Calvin | History, Significance & Impact
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What was Ulrich Zwingli's legacy?
Zwingli's beliefs helped to shape the doctrines and practices of the Reformation movement. He brought the city of Zurich into the Protestant cause during the schism between Roman Catholicism and Protestant Christianity. Zwingli reformed the city by ridding it and its church of many Catholic beliefs and practices, such as veneration of the saints, the use of an organ during worship services, priestly celibacy, monasticism, and the Catholic Mass.
What did Zwingli believe in?
Zwingli believed in God's sovereignty and divine predestination, a doctrine that meant God chose some people to save and send to heaven based on the death of Christ and others to condemn to everlasting death in hell for their sins. He also believed that the Bible was the sole and final religious authority instead of the Roman Catholic Pope. He argued that in the Lord's Supper, Christ was symbolically, rather than completely and physically present, which was different from the Catholic view and the belief of fellow leader of the Reformation movement Martin Luther. Zwingli also believed the church should purge itself of Catholic doctrines and practices, including the mass, veneration of saints, priestly celibacy, monasticism, and the prohibition of eating meat during the season of Lent. Zwingli believed in the doctrine of justification by faith alone, which said that sinners were saved not by good works but by faith in Jesus Christ.
What did Zwingli and Luther disagree on?
Zwingli and Martin Luther disagreed on the doctrine of the Lord's Supper. In Luther's view, the literal body and blood of Jesus Christ were somehow, mysteriously, physically present in the sacrament. According to Zwingli, this was not the case; instead, the bread and wine were merely a symbolic remembrance and representation of the body and blood of Jesus.
What was Zwingli famous for?
Ulrich Zwingli was famous for preaching in and reforming the city of Zurich. As one of the most well-known leaders of the Reformation movement, Zwingli opposed the power, practices, and doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church and argued for his beliefs, known eventually as Reformed theology or Protestantism.
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ShowIn Europe, the sixteenth century was a time of major religious, intellectual, social, and political change. During this period, several fiery preachers and theologians arose and took their places as leaders of the religious and theological movement known as the Reformation. Often traced to the actions and writings of a German monk named Martin Luther in the year 1517, the Reformation centered on four key elements of Christian belief and practice: salvation, religious authority, the nature of the church, and the essence of the Christian life. Believers who held to the doctrines of the Reformation, known eventually as Reformed theology, came to be called Protestants for their protest against the power and beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church.
Among the leaders of the Reformation was a man named Ulrich Zwingli from the city of Zurich in modern-day Switzerland. Who was Ulrich Zwingli? Born in a place called Wildhaus in what is now Switzerland, Zwingli became an educated man, attending the University of Vienna and the University of Basel. Zwingli grew up to be a preacher in Zurich, a Swiss city that found itself in the midst of religious and political conflict between Roman Catholics and Protestants.
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A persuasive preacher, Zwingli reformed many of the beliefs and practices of his congregants at Zurich's Cathedral Church. He stood against Roman Catholic doctrines and practices and eventually instituted in the city a Protestant form of worship rather than the Catholic Mass. He also saw to it that the veneration of saints, relics, and images was abolished. He put an end to the use of an organ during worship services, and he made sure the church allowed citizens to eat meat during the season of Lent when Roman Catholics usually forbade it. Last, he made sure priests were permitted to marry, which also contradicted Roman Catholic doctrine and policy. The impact of Zwingli's life and work on religious history can be seen not only in how he reformed and changed people's lives and beliefs during his own time but also the influence he had on Protestants who came after him.
For instance, those English Protestants of the century after Zwingli's life known as Puritans followed many of his core tenets. Like him, Puritans sought to purge (or purify) the Church of England from its corruption by the Roman Catholic Church, evidenced by the similarity of its worship services, doctrine, and religious imagery. Many of these Puritans eventually carried Zwingli's beliefs and works to North America and began the project of colonization there that would eventually help lead to the creation of the United States. Zwingli, then, helped to solidify, put into action, and transmit into the future the doctrines and practices that defined the Reformation.
Zwingli and his Beliefs
Zwingli was himself a Roman Catholic until the year 1519. In that year, influenced in part by the writings of a Roman Catholic theologian named Erasmus and fellow Reformer Martin Luther, Zwingli began to question his past beliefs and to form new ones. Zwingli's beliefs were based on his reading of the Pauline epistles in the New Testament, specifically the personal translation of that portion of the Bible by Erasmus. A former monk who nevertheless remained Roman Catholic, Erasmus had begun to question the amount of power the Pope ascribed to himself, which encouraged Zwingli to go even further and reject altogether the Pope's authority to determine the beliefs of individual Christians and the church. Zwingli also denied that priests should be celibate for life. And whereas the Roman Catholic Church taught that believers must worship in accordance with the Catholic Mass, Zwingli sought to align his church's worship and liturgy strictly with the Bible's commandments. While the Catholic Church called for veneration of saints and objects related to them, Zwingli argued that this was idolatry and thus forbidden by scripture. He also agreed with Luther's understanding of the biblical idea that sinners were saved (justified, or declared righteous by God) through faith alone in Jesus rather than good works. Zwingli also believed that God had predestined some people to salvation and eternal life but others to everlasting death in hell.
The Lord's Supper was one of the core sacraments of Christians since the first century. Roman Catholic theology held that during it, the literal body and blood of Jesus (in the bread and wine) were physically present. Reformation leader Martin Luther held to a form of this belief regarding the Lord's Supper, too. Zwingli, however, disagreed, saying that the sacrament was only a symbolic remembrance of Jesus Christ's body and blood, rather than his complete, physical presence.
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Born in 1509 near the city of Paris, John Calvin was younger than Zwingli but no less influential as a leader of the Reformation. Calvin, educated at the University of Paris, was a brilliant writer and logician at a very young age. His father hoped he would become a lawyer, but Calvin chose to pursue the life of a scholar and study the classics once his father died. Many Protestant ideas were circulating around Paris while Calvin was there. He became interested in these beliefs and linked himself to the Protestant cause in France.
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One night in July 1536, Calvin thought he was merely passing through the city of Geneva when a preacher named William Farel there boldly told Calvin that he would face the wrath of God if he did not stay and help Farel reform the city. Geneva at the time was identified as a Protestant city but more because of its political allegiance than any true desire to live or believe as Protestants. Not wanting to disobey God and face his displeasure, Calvin agreed and stayed with Farel in Geneva to reform the city along the lines of what both men believed were the commandments of God regarding how individuals, the church, and the government should work.
Like Zwingli, Calvin aimed to purge the churches in Geneva of practices and doctrines associated with the Roman Catholic Church.
Earlier that year, in March 1536, Calvin had published the first edition of his massive theological tome called The Institutes of the Christian Religion. In it, Calvin systematized, defined, and explained every important doctrine of Reformed theology. In particular, he emphasized the absolute sovereignty of God, by which he ordained whatever came to pass. This included the salvation or condemnation of human beings. Like Luther and Zwingli, Calvin believed in predestination, wherein God had foreordained some people to salvation and eternal life through the work of Jesus Christ and others to condemnation and everlasting death because of their sin. Calvin continued to add to and edit his book, and it remains one of the most widely read and insightful works of Protestant theology nearly five centuries after it was first published.
Calvin's efforts to reform Geneva and make it God's City met fierce resistance from the people. While he wanted to enforce strict discipline and biblical rules of morality, many did not want to live or believe in accordance with him or Farel. They were both exiled in 1538 and had to wait more than ten years to return and take up their positions again. When they did, the government of Geneva agreed to support them. Once again, though, the people opposed them and began an uprising. Resistance to Calvin's beliefs, authority, and influence continued off and on until the year 1555, when the city settled down enough that he could successfully shape the laws, doctrines, and actions of the city and its people until his death in 1564.
Reformation Movement
Beginning with the actions of Martin Luther, the Reformation movement continued throughout Europe, with Zwingli and Calvin, among others, serving as intellectual and spiritual leaders. At the heart of the movement was the Protestant critique of the Roman Catholic Church for its policies, which the Reformers argued were unbiblical and false, and its power, which they argued was misused and should not belong to the Catholic Church. The writings, sermons, beliefs, and actions of men such as Zwingli, Calvin, and others like them came to be called the Reformation, as that effort reformed many Christian beliefs and practices. Zwingli and Calvin helped create and further the split within Christianity. The schism between Roman Catholicism and what was eventually known as Protestantism shaped the religious history of Europe and North America. Today it continues to influence the lives and thought of people all over the globe.
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Ulrich Zwingli & John Calvin | History, Significance & Impact
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