Owing to the close proximity of Great Poland to Saxony and Wittenberg, Luther’s reforms reached it quickly. In 1524 King Sigismund found it necessary to dispatch a special emissary in the person of Nicholas Tomicki, starosta of Kościan, to the town of Kościan to suppress the spread of heretical views there, and to call upon the town authorities to assist Tomicki in his mission in every way possible.[69] In the city of Posen, according to Prof. H. Merczyng, Luther’s doctrines were preached publicly from the pulpit of Mary Magdalene’s Church by its preacher, John Seklucyan, in 1525.[70] For this offense Seklucyan was removed from his post by the magistracy of the city at the king’s behest. He found a protector, however, in the powerful magnate Andrew Górka, who sheltered him in his own palace in Posen, and secured for him from the king in the course of time a position as secretary of customs in that city.[71] Seklucyan remained in Posen until 1544, when he removed to Königsberg, where he was very active for a number of years in the preparation and publication of Polish Protestant literature.[72] The Reformation found favor with and protection from some of the most powerful aristocratic families of Great Poland, like the Górkas, Bnińskis, Tomickis, Ostrorogs, and Leszczyńskis.[73] The German reform movement was reenforced in Great Poland by the arrival there in 1548, on their way to East Prussia, of the Bohemian Brethren, exiled from their own country. During their brief stay in Great Poland, under the protection of the Górkas, they made many friends, won a considerable following, and laid the foundation for the Bohemian Brethren Church of Great Poland. Though forced to move on by a royal decree, issued on request of the bishop of Posen, many of them returned later, when conditions had changed, and settled in Posen and other places of Great Poland. By 1557 the Bohemian Brethren had thirty churches in Great Poland, and some of the foremost families, like the Leszczyńskis, Krotowskis, Ostrorogs, Opalińskis, and Tomickis, accepted their form of the Christian faith.[74]