Career
He served as Archdeacon at the Grossmünster in Zurich and briefly Antistes of the Zurich church as the successor of Rudolf Gwalther. Lavater was a prolific author, composing homilies, commentaries, a survey of the liturgical practices of the Zurich church, a history of the Lord"s Supper controversy, as well as biographies of Bullinger and Konrad Pellikan. His work on ghosts (De spectris ) was one of the most frequently printed demonological works of the early modern period, going into at least nineteen early modern editions in German, Latin, French, English and Italian.