Revision #15323
Anna Adlischwyler
Localized for English-speaking readers
Status: approved
Changes from the previous English revision
= ## Life
- Anna Adlischwyler lived as a nun in the Oetenbach convent in Zurich, Switzerland. The year of her birth is not known with certainty. At that time the Reformation led by Huldrych Zwingli was under way in Zurich. The Reformers held that monastic vows (a pledge to live the religious life in lifelong celibacy) had no basis in Scripture, and during this period many monks and nuns left their monasteries and convents.
+ Anna Adlischwyler lived as a nun in the Oetenbach convent in Zurich, Switzerland. The year of her birth is not known with certainty. At that time the Reformation, led by Huldrych Zwingli, was under way in Zurich. The Reformers held that monastic vows (a pledge to live the religious life in lifelong celibacy) had no basis in Scripture, and during this period many monks and nuns left their religious houses.
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- When Heinrich Bullinger proposed marriage, she reportedly did not come to a decision easily. In the end she left the Oetenbach convent, as one of the last nuns to remain there, and married Bullinger in 1529. Bullinger later succeeded Zwingli as leader of the Zurich church. The couple had eleven children. She died of the plague in 1564.
+ When Heinrich Bullinger proposed marriage, she reportedly did not come to a decision easily. In the end she left the Oetenbach convent as one of the last nuns to remain there, and she married Bullinger in 1529. Bullinger later succeeded Zwingli as leader of the Zurich church. The couple had eleven children. She died of the plague in 1564.
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= ## Ministry and Contributions
- There is no record of Anna Adlischwyler holding any public office or leaving any writings. Her work consisted chiefly of managing her husband's parsonage (the residence of a pastor's family). She kept the parsonage open to guests, and many of those who stayed there had fled their homelands for Zurich because of their faith.
+ There is no record of Anna Adlischwyler holding any public office or leaving any writings. Her work consisted chiefly of managing her husband's parsonage, the residence of the pastor's family. She kept the parsonage open to guests, and many of those who stayed there were people who had fled their homelands for Zurich because of their faith.
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= Because of this hospitality and her faith lived out in daily life, later generations of the Reformed church regarded her as **the ideal of a pastor's wife**. In 2017 the Gesellschaft zu Fraumünster (Fraumünster Society) of Zurich placed a commemorative marker honoring her in Zurich's Old Town.
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= ## Influence on the Korean Church
- No direct influence of Anna Adlischwyler on the Korean church has been identified. After the Reformation, however, Protestantism permitted clergy to marry, and a tradition developed in which a minister's wife opened her home to care for members of the congregation. She is counted among the early figures of this tradition, and her example invites comparison with the culture of the samo (pastor's wife) in the Korean church.
+ After the Reformation, Protestantism permitted clergy to marry, and a tradition developed in which a minister's wife opened her home to care for members of the congregation. Anna Adlischwyler is counted among the early figures of this tradition. No direct influence of hers on Korean churches has been identified, but her example offers a point of comparison with the culture of the samo (pastor's wife) in Korean Protestant churches.
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= ## Assessment
- In the Reformed tradition she is regarded favorably as a believer who left the convent, embraced the Reformed faith, and served refugees through hospitality. The Catholic Church, by contrast, regards monastic vows as a holy promise made to God, and it therefore views differently from Protestants the decision of monks and nuns during the Reformation to renounce their vows and marry. Moreover, because most surviving accounts of her were written from the perspective of her role as "the reformer's wife," little is known of her own thoughts or voice.
+ In the Reformed tradition she is regarded favorably as a believer who left the convent, embraced the Reformed faith, and served refugees through hospitality. The Catholic Church, by contrast, regards monastic vows as a holy promise made to God, and it therefore understands differently from Protestants the renunciation of vows and marriage of monks and nuns during the Reformation. Moreover, because most surviving accounts of her were written from the perspective of her role as "the reformer's wife," little is known of her own thoughts or voice.
Anna Adlischwyler (?–1564) was a sixteenth-century woman of Zurich, Switzerland. Formerly a nun of the Oetenbach convent, she married the reformer Heinrich Bullinger in 1529 and was afterward remembered as a model for the household of a Reformed pastor.
Anna Adlischwyler (d. 1564) was a sixteenth-century woman of Zurich, Switzerland. A former nun of the Oetenbach convent, she married the reformer Heinrich Bullinger in 1529 and was afterward remembered as a model for the household of a Reformed pastor.
Full revision
Anna Adlischwyler (d. 1564) was a sixteenth-century woman of Zurich, Switzerland. A former nun of the Oetenbach convent, she married the reformer Heinrich Bullinger in 1529 and was afterward remembered as a model for the household of a Reformed pastor.
Life
Anna Adlischwyler lived as a nun in the Oetenbach convent in Zurich, Switzerland. The year of her birth is not known with certainty. At that time the Reformation, led by Huldrych Zwingli, was under way in Zurich. The Reformers held that monastic vows (a pledge to live the religious life in lifelong celibacy) had no basis in Scripture, and during this period many monks and nuns left their religious houses.
When Heinrich Bullinger proposed marriage, she reportedly did not come to a decision easily. In the end she left the Oetenbach convent as one of the last nuns to remain there, and she married Bullinger in 1529. Bullinger later succeeded Zwingli as leader of the Zurich church. The couple had eleven children. She died of the plague in 1564.
Ministry and Contributions
There is no record of Anna Adlischwyler holding any public office or leaving any writings. Her work consisted chiefly of managing her husband's parsonage, the residence of the pastor's family. She kept the parsonage open to guests, and many of those who stayed there were people who had fled their homelands for Zurich because of their faith.
Because of this hospitality and her faith lived out in daily life, later generations of the Reformed church regarded her as the ideal of a pastor's wife. In 2017 the Gesellschaft zu Fraumünster (Fraumünster Society) of Zurich placed a commemorative marker honoring her in Zurich's Old Town.
Influence on the Korean Church
After the Reformation, Protestantism permitted clergy to marry, and a tradition developed in which a minister's wife opened her home to care for members of the congregation. Anna Adlischwyler is counted among the early figures of this tradition. No direct influence of hers on Korean churches has been identified, but her example offers a point of comparison with the culture of the samo (pastor's wife) in Korean Protestant churches.
Assessment
In the Reformed tradition she is regarded favorably as a believer who left the convent, embraced the Reformed faith, and served refugees through hospitality. The Catholic Church, by contrast, regards monastic vows as a holy promise made to God, and it therefore understands differently from Protestants the renunciation of vows and marriage of monks and nuns during the Reformation. Moreover, because most surviving accounts of her were written from the perspective of her role as "the reformer's wife," little is known of her own thoughts or voice.