Both John Calvin and Ulrich Zwingli made their homes in Switzerland.  Geneva was Calvin’s town, and Zurich was Zwingli’s.  Today, Sunday, August 16, we three couples took the tram down town.  In addition to taking a boat taxi for a hot ride on the lake, we visited three churches.

Yes, we “went to church,” as we say, three times.  The first was the Grossmunster Church.  It was built as a Romanesque building in 1220, but in the 16^th century Zwingli launched the Swiss Reformation from it.

The second was the Fraumunster.  It was founded in 853, and mostly noble women lived in this influential Benedictine abbey.  But in the 16th and 17th centuries its doors were opened as a refuge for persecuted French Huguenots.

The third building was St. Peter-Kirche.  Europe’s largest clock face and fire watch lookout point are located on or in its steeple tower.  Parts of the building date to the 9^th-15^th centuries.  It now houses an evangelical church.

These were just three of the church buildings whose towers (steeples) dominate the cityscape.  But for all that, as I wrote in the previous post, this land of the Reformers stands in great spiritual need.

We fly home tomorrow to another country with a great, but largely forgotten, spiritual foundation.