Gained with humanism (it was strongly influenced by Erasme, which it had met in Basle in 1516) and nourished thought of Luther, from which it endorsed some theses, it recommended a return to the sources of Christianity and, since 1522, rebelled in its writings and its acts against the authority diocésaine by in particular rejecting the legitimacy of the abstinence and the celibacy ecclesiastics; this same year, he married the widow Anna Reinhard.

The Council of Zurich having organized an argument (1523), Zwingli developed his 67 theological theses and gained the city with the Reform to with it. In Auslegung und Gründe der Schlussreden (1523) and Of will vera and falsa religione commentarius (1525), it exposed the great points of its doctrines: suppression of the images in the churches, reorganization of the benefit, secularization of the convents, fusion of the Church and the State, rejection of the pertaining to worship forms, abandonment of Latin in the liturgy, etc

In 1525, it separated from Luther on the question of the Holy Communion: whereas he had up to that point admitted the real presence of Christ in the eucharistie, it defended the idea of the presence symbolic system (presence of the Christ-Spirit). Under its action, the Reform, thanks to the evangelic League joining together the cantons of Bern, Saint-Gall, Basle and Zurich, extended to the common bailiwicks (“alliance combourgeoise”) after the first peace from Kappel (1529), which put temporarily fine at the hostilities with the catholic cantons, supported by Austria. Insulated more and more, it launched Zurich in the second war of Kappel, during which it was killed.