From 1552 to 1565 the Protestants dominated all the Diets, electing invariably a Protestant as president of the Chamber of Deputies. The united opposition of the Polish szlachta to the Polish clergy in 1552, the election of an avowed Protestant to the presidency of the Chamber in that year, and the actual, even though temporary, suspension of ecclesiastical jurisdiction,--all this had a most stimulating affect on the religious reform movement in Poland. Felix Krzyżak and Francis Stankar, who had fled to Great Poland from the persecution of Bishop Zebrzydowski in 1551 and had found protection at Ostrorog in the possessions of Stanislaus and James Ostrorog, returned now to resume their work in Little Poland.[136] For this they were now all the better qualified as a result of their acquaintance with the work of the Bohemian Brethren in Great Poland. They began to hold conferences and synods, thereby stimulating the interest and enthusiasm of the Protestants in the reform movement. The Protestant nobles, having the right of recommending candidates for vacant churches within their possessions, made now direct appointments of men sympathetic with the reform movement. In this way into many of the churches the new form of worship was introduced. At the same time many of the nobles began seriously to question the fundamental right of the clergy to tithes, and stopped payment, even though they had agreed in 1552 to continue this practice.[137] They took these bold steps, believing that the young king was with them. They drew that inference from the king’s close intimacy with Lismanini, who was now an avowed Calvinist, and with others equally well known for their heretical sympathies and contacts.[138]