section_path: Consolidation/Stalemate in Switzerland
section_name: Stalemate in Switzerland
paragraph_text: Stalemate in Switzerland
  
  In 1526, the villagers of the autonomous Graubünden region in Switzerland agreed that each village could freely choose between Protestantism and Catholicism, setting a precedent for the coexistence of the two denominations in the same jurisdiction. Religious affiliation in the Mandated Territories (lands jointly administered by the Swiss cantons) became the subject of much controversy between Protestant and Catholic cantons. The Protestant cantons concluded a military alliance early in 1529, the Catholic cantons in April. After a bloodless armed conflict, the Mandated communities were granted the right to choose between the two religions by a majority vote of the male citizens. Zwingli began an intensive proselityzing campaign which led to the conversion of most Mandated communities to Protestantism. He set up a council of clergymen and lay delegates for church administration, thus creating the forerunners of presbyteries. Zürich imposed an economic blockade on the Catholic cantons but the Catholics routed Zürich's army in 1531. The Catholics' victory stopped the Protestant expansion in Switzerland.
  
  Zwingli was killed in the battlefield, and succeeded by a former monk Heinrich Bullinger (d. 1575) in Zürich. Bullinger developed Zwingli's Eucharistic formula in an attempt to reach a compromise with Luther, saying that the faithful made spiritual contact with God during the commemorative ceremony.