Catholic Forces Defeat Reformer Ulrich Zwingli’s Army: October 11, 1531

This text comes from our book, Light to the Nations, Part I.

While Luther was in the Wartburg, the city of Wittenberg was in a religious uproar. Inspired by Luther’s ideas, priests married, monks and friars abandoned their cloisters, a mob of students destroyed altars and smashed stained-glass windows at the city’s Franciscan convent, and general religious mayhem erupted. On Christmas Day, 1521, one of Luther’s associates, Karlstadt, in street clothes and wearing no vestments, said Mass in German, and he invited all who attended to take the bread in their hands and drink from the cup. Two days later, the “prophets” from the nearby town of Zwickau arrived. They claimed that God spoke to them directly and that no Christian should own private property, but that all believers should hold property in common.

The Castle Church (Schlosskirche) at Wittenberg, Germany

From the Wartburg, Luther applauded most of these events—and even approved of Karlstadt’s marriage to a young woman. Yet, in March 1522, Luther, dressed again in his monastic habit, suddenly returned to Wittenberg and preached a series of sermons against what had been occurring there. With Luther’s return, Mass again was sung in Latin, priests returned to wearing vestments, and adoration of the Eucharist was restored. Why Luther changed his mind about the radical events occurring in Wittenberg is unclear, but his actions upon his return stopped his reform from becoming too revolutionary.

Elsewhere, however, other reformers took Luther’s idea that every individual Christian could interpret the Bible as well as the pope and Church councils, and they ran with it. These reformers went farther in “reforming” the Church than Luther thought wise or right—and earned Luther’s bitter condemnation for it. Since Luther and his followers accepted no authority, tradition, or teaching authority outside the Bible, disputes arose among them over how to interpret Scripture, and these disputes became very bitter. The consequence of these warring doctrines was the splintering of Protestantism, right from its beginning, into dozens of factions.

In comparison with the newer reformers, Luther was almost traditional. Unlike the more radical reformers, Luther taught that the Eucharist and Baptism are Sacraments. Lutheran churches kept images, Catholic liturgical forms (though, for the Mass, he did replace Latin with German), and singing—especially singing, for Luther was a great lover of music. He himself wrote hymns; his most famous being Ein Feste Burg—“A Mighty Fortress.” Yet, many of the newer reformers thought music in church services was papistical—and, even, diabolic—and they banned all religious singing.

One of these newer reformers was Ulrich Zwingli, a priest and humanist scholar. In 1518, Zwingli became the preacher at the cathedral in the Swiss town of Zürich, where, a year later, he condemned the selling of indulgences. By 1522, Zwingli was preaching doctrines similar to Karlstadt’s, condemning the Mass, the doctrine of Purgatory, prayers to the saints, monasteries, relics, and the use of images in churches.

Switzerland in the 16th century

Zwingli disagreed with Luther on many points. Zwingli denied the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and he denied that even Communion and Baptism were Sacraments. Like Luther, however, he held that the individual believer could interpret the Scriptures for himself. In September 1523, after the Zürich town council put Zwingli in charge of the city’s cathedral, he ordered the destruction of all church decorations and religious art in the city. In December, under Zwingli’s direction, Zürich forbade monasteries and convents to accept new members. Finally, during Holy Week of 1525, the town abolished the Mass in favor of a simple communion service.

Zwingli used politics and war to spread his doctrines. Several Swiss towns followed his lead and adopted his reforms. The Swiss cantons (states) of Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden, Lucerne, Zug, and Fribourg remained faithful to the Catholic Church. To force these regions to accept his doctrines, Zwingli planned a war against them in 1529. The fighting did not begin until 1531, when the Catholic cantons attacked Zürich and its allies. At the battle of Kappel on October 11, 1531, the Catholic forces defeated Zwingli’s army, and the reformer himself was killed.

More radical than Zwingli or Karlstadt were the Anabaptists. Their name means “rebaptizer,” because they rejected infant baptism and insisted that everyone who had been baptized as an infant had to be rebaptized as an adult. The Anabaptists differed among themselves and had no unified church structure. Some were communistic, holding all their possessions in common. Some were peaceful, believing that no follower of Christ must shed blood. Others were violent, like a group in the lower Rhine region of Germany who rose in revolt against the empire, seized the city of Münster, and proclaimed their leader king of the “New Sion.”

The burning of the 16th-century Dutch Anabaptist, Anneken Hendriks

Whether they were peaceful or violent, the Anabaptists were seen by Catholics, Lutherans, and Zwinglians as a threat to the peace of society. All religious factions persecuted them. Luther himself bitterly denounced them and called for their extermination.

Anabaptist groups survived the persecutions of the 16th and 17th centuries. The Mennonites, founded by the Dutch preacher Menno Simons (who had been a Catholic priest), exist today, particularly in North America. One of their sects is the Old Order Mennonites, called more commonly the Amish. These people maintain a distinctive mode of life in tight-knit farming communities that reject the use of much of modern technology, such as automobiles and tractors. Some Mennonite groups today are known for their work for peace in a violent world.