The history of the Reformation in Switzerland
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Protestantism's origins lie in Germany and are usually linked to Luther. Switzerland played at least as important a role in the emergence of this phenomenon in the history of world religion. Zurich and Zwingli, Geneva and Calvin - Switzerland can very well be considered the second cradle of Protestantism.
Major celebrations to mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation took place both in Switzerland and elsewhere in 2017. This date was a reminder of how Martin Luther promulgated his famous theses in Germany on 31 October 1517, intending simply to begin the process of church reform. A whole new denomination emerged.
The Reformation movement in Switzerland came a little later, but the Confederation decided to celebrate this important date together with the rest of the world. The central figure of the Swiss Reformation was Huldrych Zwingli. Born in St Gallen, he came to Zurich in 1519. With his unusual and downright revolutionary preaching, he completely renewed the city's ecclesiastical institution in just a few years.
The Catholic rite in Zurich had already been officially abolished in 1525. But here's a curiosity: the Reformation, which had a huge impact on Switzerland's socio-political and religious landscape, began... the common sausage.
After 1525 the fate of the Reformation in Switzerland largely depended on the position of Bern, which, having the most extensive territory at its disposal, could decisively influence the balance of power. Under considerable pressure from the Catholic states of Inner Switzerland, and hesitant to break the tilt towards the old faith, Bern delayed the reformation for a long time. The breakthrough did not come until 1528.
But Switzerland would not have been itself if the Reformation had only been carried out here according to the Zurich Canon. Another bastion and stronghold of Protestantism was Geneva. The French jurist Jean Calvin moved to Geneva in 1536. The year before he had published one of the most influential theological texts of the Reformation, the treatise "Institutio Christianae Religionis" in Basel, which was then the foremost city in terms of the development of printing. Within a few years, through his efforts, Geneva became the "Protestant Rome".
The three original cantons of Inner Switzerland - Uri, Schwyz and Nidwalden - as well as the cantons of Fribourg, Solothurn and Valais, firmly adhered to the old Catholic faith. They resolutely refused to introduce any ecclesiastical innovations.
The reasons were the more "democratic" regimes of those lands, where the power of the nobility was not particularly strong, and the tradition of mercenary soldiering, which the reformed cantons saw as a betrayal of their own freedom.
Interestingly, the "ecclesiastical schism" did not lead to a political split in the "Confederation". The cantons were responsible for their own denomination, but this could lead to local political schisms, as in 1597 when the canton of Appenzell split into two smaller Catholic (Appenzell Inner) and Protestant (Appenzell Outer) cantons.
But on the whole it was the very "loose" character of the union of the Swiss cantons which predetermined its survival. If the Union had been more 'centralist' in its structure, its political future would certainly have looked very different. On the other hand, the 'religious schism' further weakened the Confederation's ability to make effective foreign policy decisions.
There was also a later split within Protestantism itself, in particular the teachings of Luther and Zwingli did not agree on the question of 'communion' (Abendmahlstreit), which turned the Rhine from a political border between the Swiss cantons and German principalities into a religious-political and linguistic border as well.
On the whole, the church reformers in Zurich and Geneva gave the new religion a powerful impetus, so that Protestantism as we know it today was shaped by the events of the 16th century Confederation. In 1566 the Zwinglians and the Calvinists put together a joint front around a document crucial to the Swiss Reformation, known in history as the Confessio Helvetica Posterior, which finally established Switzerland as the second major pole of the Reformation and an alternative to Lutheranism.
By 1566 this document had become the "fundamental and guiding" set of provisions for the entire Swiss Reformation. Its significance spread far beyond Switzerland, and was known in Hungary, Poland and Scotland. One way or another, the creation of the pan-Protestant front meant the end of a kind of era of tolerance. Switzerland stopped sheltering European heretics, particularly the Socinian and anti-trinitarians. The already mentioned Swiss sectarian movement Täuferbewegung (literally "Baptist / Baptist movement") was also persecuted.
All the reformed cantons and dependent districts (zugewandte) joined the Confessio Helvetica Posterior. The unity of the Reformed faith was only consolidated in 1618-1619 at the so-called Synod of Dordrecht, or Synode von Dordrecht, with the active support of the Swiss theologians.) Since then, documents such as the Confessio, the 'Dordrecht Canons' and the cantonal catechisms have been the foundations of the 'true faith'. The reformed "confederates" maintained close links with European Protestants who managed to break through to the levers of state power, namely the Dutch Republic, some West German principalities, the Hanseatic city of Bremen, as well as with Scotland.
For the French Huguenots (derived from the German word Eidgenosse, meaning "Swiss"), the English Presbyterians, the Reformed minorities of Turkish Hungary and the Piedmont, the Protestant cantons and lands of Switzerland continued to provide ideological and financial support, and when necessary, safe haven.
Today, however, Protestantism has lost much of its ground in Switzerland and continues to do so. By contrast, Catholicism has been able to gain ground, partly thanks to immigration from Catholic countries such as Portugal and from Latin America. In Protestant as well as Catholic churches the pews are increasingly empty, so that the expression "voice crying in the wilderness" has suddenly taken on a new meaning in the country.
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