Anna Reinhart

Life

Anna Reinhart was born around 1484 in Zurich to Oswald Reinhart, an innkeeper, and Elsbeth Wynzürn. Some sources give her year of birth as 1487. She first married Hans Meyer von Knonau, a nobleman from a family of Zurich city councilors. Her husband's father opposed the marriage, and her husband is said to have been disinherited. He died in 1517, leaving a son, Gerold, and two daughters, Margaretha and Agatha.

After being widowed, she lived near the Grossmünster (Zurich's principal church) and heard the sermons of its preacher, Ulrich Zwingli. The two were secretly married in 1522, at a time when Zwingli was still a Roman Catholic priest and therefore forbidden to marry. On April 2, 1524, they made the marriage official by going to church together publicly. She and Zwingli had four children: Regula, Wilhelm, Huldrych, and Anna; the youngest, Anna, died in childhood.

Zwingli was killed on October 11, 1531, at the Second Battle of Kappel. Also killed in the battle were Gerold, her son from her first marriage, as well as her son-in-law, her brother, and her brother-in-law. Afterward, Zwingli's successor, Heinrich Bullinger, took her into his home, where she lived for the rest of her life. She died in Zurich in December 1538; sources differ on the exact date.

Ministry and Contributions

The Historical Dictionary of Switzerland (HLS) notes that, because few records survive, almost nothing is known about her. Consequently, most accounts of her ministry derive from later biographies and tradition. According to this tradition, after marrying Zwingli she stopped wearing jewelry and cared for the poor and the sick, so that she came to be called the "apostolic Dorcas" of Zurich. Tradition also holds that she welcomed the guests and refugees who came to the pastor's house.

Her marriage is regarded as an early instance in which the Reformation's teaching that clergy may marry was put into practice. The Zwinglis made their marriage public a year before Martin Luther married Katharina von Bora in 1525.

Influence on the Korean Church

She had no direct influence on the Korean church. In Korea she appears to be mentioned chiefly in discussions of Zwingli's life or of the marriages and households of the Reformation leaders, alongside other Reformers' wives such as Katharina von Bora and Anna Adlischwyler. She is also sometimes cited in explanations of why Protestantism takes pastoral marriage for granted and how the distinctive role of the samonim (pastor's wife) came into being.

Assessment

Her marriage was controversial even in her own day. Catholic opponents accused Zwingli of breaking his priestly vows and of marrying her for her beauty and wealth. By contrast, one contemporary chronicler recorded with astonishment that the two loved each other, since marriage for love was rare at the time.

Today she receives attention as part of a broader effort within the Reformed tradition to reexamine the role of women during the Reformation. However, biographies that portray her as a model of faith often fill gaps in the historical record with tradition, and historians consider it necessary to treat such accounts with caution.