The treasure box of the reformer

on Sundays, when the pastor Christoph Sigrist sermon in the Zurich Grossmünster, the children of the Church-goers in the vestry is an iron-clad box. The hinges creak when opened, because the box has a half-Millennium on the lid, and including a true treasure: dolls, LEGO bricks, Autöli, toys, pictures, books . . .

the words, in the sacristy, with blood-red letters painted on the wall, are 500 years old: "Do, for God's sake, do something Brave!" It is the most famous quote of Ulrich Zwingli, as chaplain for the Welfare of the people, as a reformer, for a new orientation of the Church and as a teacher for the education of the children. His school is now called the Helferei and is, then, as now, the headquarters of the great Cathedral-pastor. "Zwingli has made it clear how closely Church and state are connected to each other," says pastor Sigrist, of the sermon today, where Zwingli on 1. In January 1519 his office as a Pastor began. From here, he offered the Almighty Catholic Church of the forehead and explained that the gospel was now preached not in Latin but in the German language, that everyone understand the word of God. "Every Time I stand on this pulpit," continues pastor Sigrist, "I take political responsibility."

Sigrist sees itself not only as Zwingli's successor. As an Ambassador for the reformation anniversary, it is a need to make history come alive. He, therefore, submit personally to the tourists in Zurich, Zwingli-city to the heart. As a cornerstone of the towers of the five old town mark churches, the center of power of the Reformation. The starting point of the hour-long tour of the grossmünster is applied, the once-Federal outside the seat of the Bishop of Konstanz. In the immediate neighborhood of Zwingli house, and its headquarters have remained, on the South portal of the house of God, the most important stations of Zwingli's Work in 24 Bronze are immortalized in carvings.

Felix and Regula: in a Panic, up the hill

a Few Hundred meters away is the water Church rises from the bed of the Limmat river, exactly at the place of execution, where more than a thousand years before Zwingli, the city saints Felix and Regula beheaded. You should was built, according to legend, their heads have about 40 steps up the hill, on the soon the great Cathedral. For preachers Sigrist, a reminder of the Zeitgeist of our day, "many a headless through the area race".

Prior to the water Church and the Grossmünster – based Ulrich Zwingli, cast in Bronze, his sword, and the sinister views of the lake and beyond, where the old believers intra-Swiss tortured the soldiers Zwingli in 1531 in the Second Kappeler war, bestial, and killed: The dismembered corpse was burned, the ashes on the field of battle scattered. "That should be used to prevent the bones remain the same", explains Christoph Sigrist. "In the Catholic understanding of the Martyr-worship are essential. But in the end, Zwingli's killers have been found with their cruelty to the victim a service: Zwingli did not want to be last of all a Martyr, he would never have admitted that you put him on a Pedestal."

Who wants to be a monument, does not need a Base – a script is doing it: Currently, Stefan Haupt's feature film "Zwingli" fills the cinemas in the whole of Switzerland. At the same time both the grossmünster, as well as Zurich tourism guides on offer by the Zwingli-city, the Grossmünster, the water Church on the Munster bridge to Fraumunster, St. Peter on the Schipfe and more about the Urania bridge to the preacher's Church, which had been transformed in the Wake of the Reformation, to the poor hospital.

anyone Who has seen the Film will recognize between Stefan Haupt and Ulrich Zwingli one thing in Common: the way of the reformer, wanted to explain to the people Jesus Christ and his gospel, it was to bring the Director of a concern, his audience Zwingli and the Reformation.

The children, however, the play during the Sunday sermon in the sacristy, know nothing of Ulrich Zwingli. But maybe you feel something that's been preserved over the centuries. Because your old game box was once a real treasure chest: you was Zwingli's Poor box and, instead of the game device, filled with money – from discharge payments that had to be wrung out of the corrupt clergy and the people. "This crate," laughs pastor Sigrist, "was Zwingli's diaconal money washing machine!"

guided group tours in the Zwingli-Zurich, Zurich tourism: 044 215 40 00, www.zuerich.com/de/besuchen/touren-ausfluege/reformation-in-zuerich or directly with the pastor Sigrist: buchungen.grossmuenster@zh.ref.ch

(Sunday newspaper)

02.02.2019, 17:04 Uhr