Later, Bucer sought agreement on common articles of faith such as the Tetrapolitan Confession and the Wittenberg Concord, working closely with Philipp Melanchthon on the latter.

[3] In addition to the princely states, free imperial cities, nominally under the control of the Emperor but really ruled by councils that acted like sovereign governments,[4] were scattered throughout the Empire.

[12] In April 1518, Johannes von Staupitz, the vicar-general of the Augustinians, invited the Wittenberg reformer Martin Luther to argue his theology at the Heidelberg Disputation.

In early 1519, Bucer received the baccalaureus degree, and that summer he stated his theological views in a disputation before the faculty at Heidelberg, revealing his break with Aquinas and scholasticism.

Bucer agreed to interrupt his journey and went to work immediately, preaching daily sermons in which he attacked traditional church practices and monastic orders.

He was not a citizen of the city, a status that afforded protection, and on 9 June 1523 he wrote an urgent letter to the Zürich reformer, Huldrych Zwingli, pleading for a safe post in Switzerland.

[31][32] The hostility reached a boiling point when Conrad Treger, the prior provincial of the Augustinians, denounced the reformist preachers and the burghers of Strasbourg as heretics.

In Bucer's book Grund und Ursach (Basis and Cause), published in December 1524, he attacked the idea of the Mass as a sacrifice, and rejected liturgical garments, the altar, and certain forms of ritual.

Bucer stated that his and Zwingli's interpretation on the eucharist was the correct one, but while he considered the Wittenberg theologians to be in error, he accepted them as brethren as they agreed on the fundamentals of faith.

[44][45] The last meeting between Zwingli and Luther was at the Marburg Colloquy of October 1529, organised by Philip of Hesse and attended by various leading reformers, including Bucer.

When representatives of the southern German cities convened in Ulm on 23–24 March 1532 to discuss their alliance with the Schmalkaldic League, Bucer advised them to sign the Augsburg Confession, if they were being pressured to do so.

On 5 January 1530, when Strasbourg joined the alliance of Swiss cities, the Christliches Burgrecht [Christian Confederation] (in German), the council systematically removed images and side altars from the churches.

[65] On 30 November 1532, the pastors and wardens of the church petitioned the council to enforce ethical standards, officially sanction the reformed faith, and refute the "sectarian" doctrines.

Some scholars have noted a possible motivation for this notorious advice: the theologians believed they had advised Philip as a pastor would his parishioner, and that a lie was justified to guard the privacy of their confessional counsel.

[92][93][94] At the end of 1538, shortly before the Catholic Duke Georg of Saxony died, a religious colloquy was convened in Leipzig to discuss potential reforms within the Duchy.

Bucer placed great hopes on this meeting: he believed it would be possible to convince most German Catholics to accept the doctrine of sola fide as the basis for discussions on all other issues.

The results were published in the "Worms Book", which they confidentially presented to a prince on each side of the religious divide: Philip of Hesse and Joachim II, Elector of Brandenburg.

[108] Electors of Saxony Holy Roman Emperors Building Literature Theater Liturgies Hymnals Monuments Calendrical commemoration On 5 February 1542, Bucer and Gropper met with Hermann von Wied, archbishop-elector of Cologne, to discuss the introduction of church reform in his archdiocese.

Some of the principles proposed include justification by faith, the acceptance of baptism and the Lord's Supper as the only valid sacraments, the offering of the cup to the laity, the holding of worship services in the vernacular, and the authorisation of priests to marry.

Bucer wrote several treatises defending von Wied's reformation plan, including a six-hundred-page book, Beständige Verantwortung (Steadfast Defence), but he was unable to influence the course of events.

In Strasbourg, Bucer and his colleagues, including Matthew Zell, Paul Fagius and Johannes Marbach, continued to press the council to bring more discipline and independence to the church.

The Diet produced an imperial decree, the provisional Augsburg Interim, which imposed Catholic rites and ceremonies throughout the Empire, with a few concessions to the Reformation.

In January 1549, with plans underway for the implementation of the Interim in Strasbourg, Bucer and his colleagues continued to attack it, producing a memorandum on how to preserve the Protestant faith under its directives.

He accepted Archbishop Thomas Cranmer's invitation to come to England; from his correspondence with several notable Englishmen, he believed that the English Reformation had advanced with some success.

In June he entered a controversy when Peter Martyr Vermigli, another refugee who had taken the equivalent Regius Professor position at Oxford University, debated with Catholic colleagues over the issue of the Lord's Supper.

The vestments controversy pitted Cranmer, who supported the wearing of clerical garments, against Hooper, Martyr and Jan Laski, the pastor of the Stranger church in London.

On learning about the custom of presenting a memorandum to the king every new year, he worked on a major treatise which he gave as a draft to his friend John Cheke on 21 October 1550.

He called for the simplification of the liturgy, noting non-essential elements: certain holidays in the liturgical calendar, actions of piety such as genuflections, and ceremonies such as private masses.

He named Walter Haddon and Matthew Parker as executors, commended his loved ones to Thomas Cranmer, and thanked his stepdaughter Agnes Capito for taking care of him.

In a letter to Peter Martyr, John Cheke wrote a fitting eulogy: We are deprived of a leader than whom the whole world would scarcely obtain a greater, whether in knowledge of true religion or in integrity and innocence of life, or in thirst for study of the most holy things, or in exhausting labour in advancing piety, or in authority and fulness of teaching, or in anything that is praiseworthy and renowned.