Ulrich Zwingli
Swiss theologian and reformer (1484–1531), born in Wildhaus, in the canton of St Gallen, educated at the universities of Vienna and Basel in a humanism deeply influenced by Erasmus of Rotterdam, and appointed in 1519 chief preacher of the Grossmünster in Zurich, a post from which he undertook, largely independently and in parallel with Luther in Germany, his own religious reform in German-speaking Switzerland. Unlike Luther's reform, Zwingli's arose from a rigorous humanist and philological method of biblical exegesis — systematically preaching chapter by chapter through the books of the New Testament rather than following the traditional liturgical calendar — which led him progressively to reject every ecclesiastical practice or doctrine lacking explicit scriptural support, including clerical celibacy, the veneration of saints, religious images in churches and mandatory fasting during Lent, this last dispute triggering the open break with Rome in 1522. Theologically, Zwingli's most significant dispute was with Luther himself over the nature of the Eucharist: while Luther maintained an interpretation of Christ's real presence in the bread and wine, Zwingli defended a symbolic, commemorative interpretation of the sacrament, an irreconcilable disagreement made plain at the famous Colloquy of Marburg (1529) that permanently divided the nascent Protestant movement into Lutheran and Reformed (Zwinglian and later Calvinist) branches. Zwingli also drove profound social and political reforms in Zurich, including the redistribution of church property toward social and educational ends and close collaboration between the Reformed Church and the city's civil government. His death, unusual for a religious reformer, occurred on the battlefield of Kappel in 1531, where he fell fighting as chaplain to Zurich's Protestant troops against the Catholic cantons, his body subsequently quartered and burned by the victors as punishment for heresy.