This growing boldness and aggressiveness of the Protestants provoked the clergy to renewed defensive and offensive activity. At the synod of Piotrków in 1554 the clergy were seriously inclined toward conciliatory measures, and after a long debate, finally resolved to invite the dissidents and schismatics to the next synod in an effort to reconcile them with the Mother Church.[139] But they did not stop with that. They further resolved to appeal to the Pope for help; they requested the Vatican to send special legates to Poland to assist the Polish clergy in their struggle against the spreading heresy, and since the agreement of 1552 was now expired, they began to make fresh use of their ecclesiastical jurisdiction. The first one to set the example again was the archbishop of Gnesen, Dzierzgowski, and his first condemnatory verdict fell on Stanislaus Lutomirski, who had left the Church of Rome twelve years before by accepting Calvinism. Here was another clergyman of noble rank condemned by an ecclesiastical tribunal as a heretic, and thus deprived of honor, property, and country. The next one to exercise his jurisdiction was the bishop of Posen, Czarnkowski, who rendered verdicts of heresy against several citizens of that city. Dziaduski, bishop of Przemyśl, continued persecuting heretical preachers in his diocese. These episcopal condemnations, however, were of no effect; for the condemned persons always found protection in the possessions of some powerful magnate, in whose territory only his own jurisdiction prevailed. In consequence of this the bishops resorted sometimes to violence in order to execute their verdicts, though not necessarily with more success. Bishop Zebrzydowski of Cracow, for instance, summoned before his episcopal tribunal Martin Krowicki, who having become a Calvinist, married, left the priesthood, and was residing at Pinczów, in the possessions of Stanislaus Oleśnicki. When Krowicki did not appear, the bishop condemned him without a trial, and planned to seize him by strategy. Krowicki was taken violently, thrown into a wagon, and carried away to the bishop’s prison. But when Oleśnicki was informed of what had happened, he set out in pursuit of Krowicki’s captors, overtook them, drove them away, and rescued the victim.[140]