The Reformation spread primarily into the cities of Switzerland, which was then composed of loosely connected cantons. Breakthroughs began in the 1520s in Zurich under Zwingli, in Bern in 1528 under Berchtold Haller, and in Basel in 1529 under Johannes Oecolampadius. After the death of Zwingli in 1531, the Reformation continued. The French-speaking cities Neuchâtel, Geneva and Lausanne changed to the Reformation ten years later under William Farel and John Calvin coming from France. The Zwingli and Calvin branches had each their theological distinctions, but in 1549 under the lead of Bullinger and Calvin they came to a common agreement in the Consensus Tigurinus, and 1566 in the Second Helvetic Confession. The German Reformed ideological center was Zurich, while the French-speaking Reformed movement bastion was Geneva. A feature of the Swiss Reformed churches in the Zwinglian tradition is their historically very close links to the cantons, which is only loosening gradually in the present. In cities where the Reformed faith became leading theology, several confessions were written, some of them:
In the mid 19th century, opposition to liberal theology and interventions by the state led to secessions in several cantonal churches. One of these secessionist churches still exists today, the Evangelical Free Church of Geneva, founded in 1849, while two others reunited with the Swiss Reformed Church in 1943 and 1966. An important issue to liberal theologians was the Apostles' Creed. They questioned its binding character. This caused a heated debate. Until the late 1870s, most cantonal reformed churches stopped prescribing any particular creed. In 1920 the Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches, with 24 member churches — 22 cantonal churches and 2 free churches, was formed to serve as a legal umbrella before the federal government and represent the church in international relations.
Social issues
is allowed in all member churches. Like many European Protestant denominations, several of the Swiss Reformed churches have openly welcomed gay and lesbian members to celebrate their civil unions within a church context. As early as 1999, the Reformed Churches in St. Gallen, Fribourg, and Lucerne had permitted prayer and celebration services for same-sex couples to recognize their civil unions. Since then, the Reformed Church in Aargau has also allowed for prayer services to celebrate same-sex couples. To date, seven other Swiss Reformed churches, including Bern-Jura-Solothurn, Graubünden, Schaffhausen, Ticino, Thurgau, Vaud, and Zürich, have allowed blessing of same-sex unions for same-sex civil unions. In August 2019 with the Evangelical Reformed Church of the Canton of Zürich the first church of Swiss Reformed Church allowed blessing of same-sex marriages and the Swiss Reformed Church allowed blessing of same-sex marriages for their member churches.
Organization and membership
Organizationally, the Reformed Churches in Switzerland remain separate, cantonal units. The German churches are more in the Zwinglian tradition; the French more in the Calvinist tradition. They are governed synodically and their relation to the respective canton ranges from independent to close collaboration, depending on historical developments. Reformed Churches in the Swiss cantons:
