Johann Faber

The Zurich city council invites the clergy of the city and outlying region to a meeting on January 3, 1523, to allow the factions to present their opinions.

The bishop is invited to attend or to send a representative.

The council will render a decision on who will be allowed to continue to proclaim their views.

This meeting, the first Zurich disputation, takes place on January 29, 1523.

The meeting attracts a large crowd of approximately six hundred participants.

The bishop sends a delegation led by his vicar general, Johannes Fabri.

Zwingli summarizes his position in the Schlussreden (Concluding Statements or the Sixty-seven Articles).

Fabri, who had not envisaged an academic disputation in the manner Zwingli had prepared for, is forbidden to discuss high theology before laymen, and simply insists on the necessity of the ecclesiastical authority.

The decision of the council is that Zwingli will be allowed to continue his preaching and that all other preachers should teach only in accordance with Scripture.

Leo Jud, Zwingli's closest friend and colleague and pastor of St. Peterskirche, had in September 1523 called publicly for the removal of statues of saints and other icons.

This had lead to demonstrations and iconoclastic activities.

The city council decides to work out the matter of images in a second disputation.

The essence of the mass and its sacrificial character is also included as a subject of discussion.

Supporters of the mass claim that the eucharist is a true sacrifice, while Zwingli claims that it is a commemorative meal.

As in the first disputation, an invitation is sent out to the Zurich clergy and the bishop of Constance.

This time, however, the lay people of Zurich, the dioceses of Chur and Basel, the University of Basel, and the twelve members of the Confederation are also invited.

About nine hundred persons attend this meeting, but neither the bishop nor the Confederation send representatives.

The disputation starts on October 26, 1523 and lasts two days.

Zwingli again takes the lead in the disputation.

His opponent is the aforementioned canon, Konrad Hofmann, who had initially supported Zwingli's election.

Also taking part is a group of young men demanding a much faster pace of reformation, who among other things plead for replacing infant baptism with adult baptism.

This group is led by Conrad Grebel, one of the initiators of the Anabaptist movement.

During the first three days of dispute, although the controversy of images and the mass are discussed, the arguments lead to the question of whether the city council or the ecclesiastical government has the authority to decide on these issues.

At this point, Konrad Schmid, a priest from Aargau and follower of Zwingli, makes a pragmatic suggestion.

As images are not yet considered to be valueless by everyone, he suggests that pastors preach on this subject under threat of punishment.

He believes the opinions of the people will gradually change and the voluntary removal of images will follow.

Hence, Schmid rejects the radicals and their iconoclasm, but supports Zwingli's position.

In November the council passes ordinances in support of Schmid's motion.

Zwingli writes a booklet on the evangelical duties of a minister, Kurze, christliche Einleitung (Short Christian Introduction), and the council sends it out to the clergy and the members of the Confederation.

In December 1523, the council sets a deadline of Pentecost in 1524 for a solution to the elimination of the mass and images.

Zwingli gives a formal opinion in Vorschlag wegen der Bilder und der Messe (Proposal Concerning Images and the Mass).

He does not urge an immediate, general abolition.

The council decides on the orderly removal of images within Zurich, but rural congregations are granted the right to remove them based on majority vote.

The decision on the mass is postponed.

Evidence of the effect of the Reformation is seen in early 1524.

Candlemas is not celebrated, processions of robed clergy cease, worshipers do not go with palms or relics on Palm Sunday to the Lindenhof, and triptychs remain covered and closed after Lent.

Opposition to the changes come from Konrad Hofmann and his followers, but the council decides in favor of keeping the government mandates.

When Hofmann leaves the city, opposition from pastors hostile to the Reformation breaks down.

The bishop of Constance tries to intervene in defending the mass and the veneration of images.

Zwingli writes an official response for the council and the result is the severance of all ties between the city and the diocese.

Shortly after the second Zurich disputation, many in the radical wing of the Reformation had become convinced that Zwingli was making too many concessions to the Zurich council.

They reject the role of civil government and demand the immediate establishment of a congregation of the faithful.

Conrad Grebel, the leader of the radicals and the emerging Anabaptist movement, speaks disparagingly of Zwingli in private.

The council on August 15, 1524, insists on the obligation to baptize all newborn infants.

Zwingli secretly confers with Grebel's group and late in 1524, the council calls for official discussions.

When talks are broken off, Zwingli publishes Wer Ursache gebe zu Aufruhr (Whoever Causes Unrest) clarifying the opposing points-of-view.

Felix Manz, another radical leader, was born in Zürich, where his father was a canon of Grossmünster church.

Though records of his education are scant, there is evidence that he had a liberal education, with a thorough knowledge of Hebrew, Greek and Latin.

Manz had become a follower of Zwingli after he came to Zürich in 1519.

When Grebel joined the group in 1521, he and Manz had become friends.

They questioned the mass, the nature of church and state connections, and infant baptism.

After the Second Disputation of Zürich in 1523, they had become dissatisfied, believing that Zwingli's plans for reform had been compromised with the city council.

Grebel, Manz and others have made several attempts to plead their position.

Several parents refuse to have their children baptized.

A public debate is held on January 17, 1525, and the council decides in favor of Zwingli.

Anyone refusing to have their children baptized is required to leave Zurich.

The radicals ignore these measures and on January 21, they meet at the house of the mother of Manz.

Grebel and a third leader, George Blaurock, perform the first recorded Anabaptist adult baptisms: Grebel baptizes Blaurock, and Blaurock in turn baptizes the others.

This makes complete the break with Zwingli and the council, and forms the first church of the Radical Reformation.

On February 2, the council repeats the requirement on the baptism of all babies and some who fail to comply are arrested and fined, Manz and Blaurock among them.

Zwingli and Jud interview them and more debates are held before the Zurich council.

Meanwhile, the new teachings continue to spread to other parts of the Confederation as well as a number of Swabian towns.

Although the council had hesitated in abolishing the mass, the decrease in the exercise of traditional piety has allowed pastors to be unofficially released from the requirement of celebrating mass.

As individual pastors alter their practices as each sees fit, Zwingli is prompted to address this disorganized situation by designing a communion liturgy in the German language.

This is published in Aktion oder Brauch des Nachtmahls (Act or Custom of the Supper).

Shortly before Easter, Zwingli and his closest associates request the council to cancel the mass and to introduce the new public order of worship.

On Maundy Thursday, April 13, 1525, Zwingli celebrates communion under his new liturgy.

Wooden cups and plates are used to avoid any outward displays of formality.

The congregation sits at set tables to emphasize the meal aspect of the sacrament.

The sermon is the focal point of the service and there is no organ music or singing.

The importance of the sermon in the worship service is underlined by Zwingli's proposal to limit the celebration of communion to four times a year.

For some time, Zwingli has accused mendicant orders of hypocrisy and demanded their abolition in order to support the truly poor.

He suggests the monasteries be changed into hospitals and welfare institutions and incorporate their wealth into a welfare fund.

This is done by reorganizing the foundations of the Grossmünster and Fraumünster and pensioning off remaining nuns and monks.

The council secularizes the church properties and establishes new welfare programs for the poor.

Zwingli requess permission to establish a Latin school, the Prophezei (Prophecy) or Carolinum, at the Grossmünster.

The council agrees and it is officially opened on June 19, 1525 with Zwingli and Jud as teachers.

It serves to retrain and reeducate the clergy.

The Zurich Bible translation, traditionally attributed to Zwingli and printed by Christoph Froschauer, bears the mark of teamwork from the Prophecy school.

Scholars have not yet attempted to clarify Zwingli's share of the work based on external and stylistic evidence.

On November 6–8, the last debate on the subject of baptism took place in the Grossmünster.

Grebel, Manz, and Blaurock defend their cause before Zwingli, Jud, and other reformers.

There is no serious exchange of views as each side will not move from their positions and the debates degenerate into an uproar, each side shouting abuse at the other.

The Zurich council, having decided that no compromise was possible, on March 7, 1526, releases the notorious mandate that no one shall re-baptize another under the penalty of death.

Although Zwingli, technically, has nothing to do with the mandate, there is no indication that he disapproves.

Felix Manz, who had sworn to leave Zurich and not to baptize any more, deliberately returns and continues the practice.

The Radical Reformation movement has spread rapidly, and Manz is very active in it.

He uses his language skills to translate his texts into the language of the people, and works enthusiastically as an evangelist.

Manz has been arrested on a number of occasions between 1525 and 1527.

While he was preaching with George Blaurock in the Grüningen region, they were taken by surprise, arrested and imprisoned in Zürich at the Wellenburg prison.

After Manz is tried, he is executed on January 5, 1527, by being drowned in the Limmat river.

He is the first the first Swiss Anabaptist to be martyred at the hands of other Protestants; three more are to follow, after which all others either will flee or be expelled from Zurich.

Manz leaves written testimony of his faith, an eighteen-stanza hymn, and is apparently the author of Protestation und Schutzschrift (a defense of Anabaptism presented to the Zürich council).

On the same day that Manz is executed, Blaurock is severely beaten and permanently expelled from Zürich.

He keeps moving, laboring at Bern, Biel, the Grisons, and Appenzell.

After his arrest and fourth banishment in April 1527, Blaurock leaves Switzerland never to return.

The Anabaptist movement’s co-founder George Blaurock, banished from Switzerland, had turned to the Tyrol.

In 1529 he becomes the pastor of the church in Adige Valley, their former pastor, Michael Kürschner, having been burned at the stake.

Blaurock conducts a very successful ministry in Tyrol.

Many believers are baptized and churches founded.

In August he and Hans Langegger are arrested by Innsbruck authorities.

While in captivity they are tortured for information.

On September 6, 1529, Blaurock and Langegger are burned at the stake near Klausen.

The only writings left by Blaurock are a letter and two hymns written during his last three weeks of life.

The hymns are entitled Gott Führt Ein Recht Gericht (God Holds a Righteous Judgment) and Gott, dich will ich loben (God, You I Will Praise).

Both hymns are preserved in the Ausbund, an old Anabaptist hymnal still used by the Amish.