The Swiss Reformation 1525–2025: New Directions

Dear Colleagues,

In April 1525 the people of Zurich gathered in the Grossmünster for the first Reformed celebration of the Lord’s Supper. The simple liturgy marked the beginning of a revolution. The Catholic rituals had been banished and the break with Rome was complete. Huldrych Zwingli and his colleagues had created a new form of church and society. The movement quickly spread across Switzerland and exercised a profound influence on the wider European Reformation. Scholarship on the Swiss Reformation continues to be fragmented and rather cantonal. The five hundredth anniversary of the foundation of the first Reformation polity in Europe offers a unique opportunity to present fresh and challenging approaches to the protean character of a revolutionary movement. Avoiding old distinctions between theology and social history and embracing new approaches, this volume seeks work that is interdisciplinary and addresses current discussions of communications, networks, textuality, gender, theology, and anthropology. It will focus on questions of “lived religion”, patterns of religious change, broader social implications, and the transmission of religious ideas and their contextualized reception. It is crucial that the Swiss Reformation, which we take to include the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (with Geneva), not be treated in isolation, but as part of a wider matrix of religious upheaval in the early modern period. Contributions from early career scholars are particularly welcome.

We request that, before submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 150–200 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the Guest Editor, Prof. Dr. Bruce Gordon ([email protected]), and CC the Assistant Editor, Ms. Joyce Xi ([email protected]). Abstracts will be reviewed by the Guest Editor to ensure proper fit within the scope of this Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer review.

Prof. Dr. Bruce Gordon
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Swiss reformation
• reformed theology
• lived religion
• church history
• communication networks
• early modern religious cultures
• social history
• religious politics