Zwingli. The first Reformed church was founded in Zurich, Switzerland. Huldrych Zwingli convinced city officials to accept his vision of true religion shortly after he arrived as chief preacher in 1518. Zwingli, the son of Swiss peasants, received an excellent education at Basel and Vienna and became attracted to Erasmus's Christian humanism. When he was ordained a priest in 1506, he showed none of the sense of being a sinner that had plagued Luther, and he cheerfully admitted having had an affair. Zwingli's work as a parish priest involved serving as chaplain to Swiss mercenaries fighting in Italy for Julius II, and the heavy casualties they suffered turned him against the papacy. When he began his preaching in Zurich, Zwingli was a radical Erasmian. He always bristled when it was suggested to him that he owed his theology to Luther and insisted...