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Ulrich Zwingli: His Life and Work

We know Ulrich Zwingli as one of the great leaders of the Protestant Reformation. When speaking of the men God raised up to reform His church, we mention the names of such men as Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Ulrich Zwingli all in the same breath. Yet, of these three servants of God, Zwingli is perhaps the least known to us. Zwingli was powerfully used by God to inaugurate the reformation of the church in Switzerland. Zwingli’s ministry laid foundations upon which the next generation of Reformers built. It is worth our while to become more familiar with this servant of God, who is also one of our spiritual fathers in the faith. That is the purpose of this article: to a give a short historical overview of the life and ministry of Ulrich Zwingli, the Reformer of Zurich, and the father of the Swiss Reformation.

Zwingli’s early life and education (1484–1506)

Ulrich Zwingli was born on January 1, 1484, in the small shepherd village of Wildhaus, situated in a pristine valley among the snowcapped Alps. Zwingli’s father was the village mag

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Ulrich Zwingli Biography

Ulrich Zwingli was born in 1484 in Wildhous, Gallen in Switzerland. His parents wanted him to become a priest. In 1500, Zwingli entered the University of Vienna, yet he finished his degree at the University of Basel in 1504. In 1506, the young Zwingli graduated with his Master's Degree. That same year, Zwingli entered his first position as a priest at the church in Glarus. He was also a chaplain for the Swiss soldiers.

Image of Ulrich Zwingli

Ulrich Zwingli Beliefs

While at university, Zwingli was exposed to the teachings of Desiderius Erasmus. He read Erasmus's Greek translation of the Bible. This led the young priest to compare Apostle Peter's Biblical church to the church of his own era.

Zwingli's beliefs would require a reform of the Catholic Church in Switzerland. He believed that the Bible clearly defined what constituted sinful actions. Some Catholic rituals, such as the use of iconography, to Zwingli, were too similar to paganism as they led to idolatry.¹

Sins are remitted in the name of Christ, and no heart ever received tid

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God’s Providence in Zwingli’s Life

Ulrich Zwingli had a great career, from about 1519 to 1529. He was trained as a Catholic priest and studied at the City of Basel. Basel was quite a university city in Switzerland. The fascinating thing about Basel is that the scholar Erasmus went to print his Greek text there, and at the same time he was printing the Greek text, Zwingli was a student in Basel.

In 1516, when Zwingli left Basel, he had with him the Greek New Testament, and for the next few years he studied it. In fact, Zwingli handwrote a copy of Paul’s epistles—so he had the printed copy and his own handwritten copy.

A New Kind of Preaching

He was appointed as the pastor of Grosmunster: the great cathedral in the city of Zurich. And on January 1, 1519, he started preaching in Matthew chapter one, verse one.

This was unprecedented. When you showed up for church at that time, all you had was the Mass and perhaps an occasional homily during Advent or Lent—you never heard an expositional sermon. But that is what Zwingli did, starting at Matthew 1:1 and preaching systematicall