Berchtold Haller

After schooling in Pforzheim, where he established a friendship with Philipp Melanchthon, he studied theology in Cologne.

He became a teacher in Rottweil in 1510 and in Bern in 1513, where he was appointed assistant preacher at the church of St Vincent in 1515.

Even before his acquaintance with Huldrych Zwingli in 1521 he had begun to preach the Reformation, his sympathetic character and his eloquence making him and the painter and writer Niklaus Manuel a great force.

Zwingli's 1531 death brought the Reformation in Bern to a crisis, to which the city council reacted by calling the first Bernese Synod with 200 participants.

However, he received strong support from Wolfgang Capito who arrived in Bern shortly before the opening of the Synod.