In January 1522 Zwingli had been preaching the gospel in Zurich for three years. He had a considerable following, but he was manifestly feeling that the services and routine of the seven churches went on much as before and that the work of evangelisation was laborious. He also now knew that effective action required the positive support of the Council, to which, as Canon and citizen, he now had easier access.

Ash Wednesday fell on 5 March in 1522, and shortly after that day an event occurred which involved Zwingli in the public assertion, and then defence, of one application of the Bible message which he had expounded and to which he had given intensive study. It came over a minor matter, one of the most adiaphorous of the adiaphora, the rule of fasting during Lent. It also happened in association with one of Zwingli's earliest supporters and admirers, the printer Christopher Froschauer, for it was in his house that trouble over this started. His press, operating in the shadow of the Dominican cloister, had been in existence for several years, and from it had come the usual books of piety and elementary instruction that characterised the early days of printing. He specialised in cheap, handy octavo volumes, and was quick to use illustrations provided on occasion by Holbein, Cranach, Graf or Dürer. Compared with Basle or Venice, the establishment was insignificant, yet without it much of Zwingli's work would have been impossible.