Monday (5/ 14) in our tour of Zurich’s old town, I was surprised to discover I was in the cradle of the Swiss Reformation.  After our “official” tour, Mike and I made our way back to two of the oldest churches in town: Grossmünster and Fraumünster.  Both of these churches were in the thick of the Prostestant Reformation in Switzerland in the early part of the 1500s and are still Reformed.  Being Presbyterian, I am quite familiar with John Calvin’s contribution to the Reformation, but Calvin was preaching and teaching in French speaking Geneva.  I was less familiar with the Swiss reformation which started a decade earlier in Zurich with Ulrich Zwingli and his successor Heinrich Bullinger.  Both Zwingli and Bullinger were pastors at the Grossmünster cathedral.

I found myself engrossed in their story when I first stepped into the Grossmünster church.  It was simple in decor as one might expect from a Reformed Church.  There were few ornaments, pictures or statues.  As Mike and I sat down in a pew to gaze at the sanctuary, Mike leaned over and asked me, “Where’s the table” meaning the communion table.  I looked to the center of the chancel where it should have been and found a large baptismal font.  I wandered the sanctuary for a while and finding no table I approached the information desk.  “Where’s the communion table?” I asked.  When the man behind the desk seemed confused, I assumed I was having a language problem and asked instead, “Where’s the altar?”   “OH, no, no, no!” He said with some alarm.  “There is no mass here.  This is a Reformed Church.”  Again, assuming I was having a language problem, I asked where the congregation celebrated communion.  He assured me they didn’t do that in Reformed churches.  What???  He had to be confused!  I gave up and we moved on to the Fraumünster Church built in 853 AD!

The Fraumünster church was also at the heart of the Swiss Reformation because the Abbess supported Zwingli in his reform efforts and asked him to preach at the Fraumünster church as well as at Grossmünster.  I was delighted to discover the Fraumünster church had a digital tour you could rent at the door that was very informative.  I quickly noticed the communion table was also missing in this church, and similarly to the Grossmünster church, had replaced the table with a large baptismal font. (See the picture above.  The flowers at the center bottom of the picture are sitting on top of the baptismal font!)  I was hoping to find some answers as to the missing table in the recorded information.  I learned that at the time of the Reformation in Zurich the 15 altars in the sanctuary of Fraumünster had all been removed along with the statuary and the organ.  (Zwingli thought the organ was too prominent in Catholic worship at the time.)  Likewise many of the ancient frescos had been painted over.  I also learned that Zwingli had quite a time fending off the Anabaptists who wanted to refuse infant baptism.  In reaction, Zwingli made baptism very prominent in the new Swiss Reformed churches.  That explained the baptism at the center of the church where the table usually was.

Things had changed since the 1500s and the Fraumünster church now boasts a beautiful pipe organ in the back balcony.  Some of the frescos have been uncovered and partially restored.  The most stunning feature of the church, however, is the set of beautiful Chagall windows that were added in the 1970s to the “choir” - the very front of the church which includes a very small, unimpressive “table” which holds a Bible and two small lamps to illuminate it.

Still wondering about the celebration of communion, I did a little research this morning into the early Swiss Reformation.  Did they indeed abolish communion? No, but they did make some pretty major changes!  Whereas the “Mass” was celebrated daily in the Catholic Church at the time of the reformation, the Swiss Reformers understood they were replacing Mass with Holy Communion.  Zwingli wrote a new liturgy for this new celebration.  They also greatly reduced it’s frequency so people would stop thinking of the sacrament as something magical.  It was primarily celebrated on the high holy days: Christmas, Good Friday, Easter and Pentecost.  The reformers intentionally shifted the focus away from the sacrament to the preaching of the word of God with a special focus on Jesus Christ.

So that’s your Swiss Reformed Theology lesson for today.  I find this really interesting!  Congratulations for having read through to the end!