Already after two more months, in January 1537, Calvin and Farel together with the reformer Illiè Coraud proposed the small city council a reform program. The Reformers would demonstrate the Roman Catholic teaching to be without biblical foundation and this convinced the City Council to reject Roman Catholic practice and control. As a result of this astonishing performance not only did Lausanne turn Protestant, 200 priests renounced the Roman Catholic Church. The opposition was completely confounded. It was an amazing display of learning and had an electrifying effect on the assembly. Standing up, the latter proceeded to quote from memory passages from the Early Church Fathers, giving the exact source in each case. Farel and Viret were unable to handle this and looked to Calvin for help. One priest in defen s e of transubstantiation started to quote from the Early Church Fathers. They took Calvin with them as an observer as they had no experience with such disputes. Farel and Viret, two well-known Swiss Reformer, were the spokesmen for the Bible. The priests were mostly ignorant and unable to defend the Roman Catholic position. There were 200 City Council members in Geneva.
On Oct 1 st 1536, only two month after Calvin had arrived again in Geneva the Roman Catholic priests of the nearby city of Lausanne the Reformers challenged the Catholic priests by a public debate. So Calvin was persuaded to stay and he began to preach in the C athedral of St. In winter 1533/34 he begins to systematically elaborate the content of Reformed teaching, laying the foundation for the “Institutio Christianae” He embraces the gospel of grace and atonement in Christ only. This is a real break-through after a longer time of reflection. As a fruit of his yearlong studies and reflections of everything he had gone through Calvin decides to support the reformation movement with his means. As a result of the tumultuous reaction Kop and his friends have to flee, when the persecutor knock on the door, Calvin takes two blankets, and lets himself from the window down to the court and escapes to Angoulême where his friend and former classmate Louis du Tillet, now a priest at the cathedral receives him and gives him another name ( „ Charles d’Espeville“ ). Part of the content describes the scholastic theology as „heretic teaching, while Luther’s new teaching are praised as “orthodox, conservative theology” combined with the open call to therefore better embrace the evangelicals as friends. Together with his friend Nikolaus Kop, who is the new principal of the university Calvin writes the opening speech to be held before the Paris’ clerical dignitaries. Here Calvin spends time to learn more about the reformers teaching. Gérard Roussel, the Kings preacher and counselor is also part of this group.
In the house of his landlord a house group of Martin Luther friendly Christians are meeting regularly.
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