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The Church of the Penitent Magdalens' steeple behind timber-framed houses extant since the time of Martin Bucer.

While these events were unfolding, the reformers in Strasbourg were slowly making progress. Their pressure on the council to completely abolish the practice of the mass eventually succeeded. On 20 February 1529, Strasbourg openly joined the Reformation when the mass was officially suspended. In its place, two preaching services (Predigtgottesdienste) per Sunday were held in all the parish churches. On 5 January 1530, when Strasbourg had allied with the Swiss cities (Christliches Burgrecht or Christian Federation), the council systematically removed images and side altars from the churches. Bucer had at first tolerated images in places of worship as long as they were not venerated. He later came to believe they should be removed because they retained the potential for abuse, and he advocated in a treatise for their orderly removal. First the authority of the magistrates should be obtained, and then the people instructed on abandoning devotion to images.

Bucer’s priority in Strasbourg was to instil moral discipline in the church. To this end, special wardens (Kirchenpfleger), chosen from among the laity, were assigned to each congregation to supervise both doctrine and practice. On 30 November 1532, the pastors and wardens of the church petitioned the council to enforce the reformed faith—to them the one true doctrine. This was the culmination of a campaign led by Bucer over several years to induce the authorities to assume control of the church in the city. The petition was largely provoked by the effects of a rapidly rising refugee population, attracted by Strasbourg’s tolerant asylum policies, since the Peasants' War of 1524–25. Large influxes of refugees, particularly after 1528, had brought a series of revolutionary preachers into Strasbourg. These men were inspired by a variety of apocalyptic and mystical doctrines, and in some cases by hostility towards the social order and the notion of an offical church. To Bucer this was unacceptable. He believed in a unified Christian society from which aberrant theological views were eradicated, and he wanted sectarian preachers executed as heretics or ejected. The ruling authorities, however, would only expel the obvious troublemakers. They had allowed sectarian congregations to thrive among the refugees and lower orders. Significant numbers of refugees were Anabaptists and spiritualists, such as the followers of Melchior Hoffman, Caspar Schwenckfeld, and Clemens Ziegler. Bucer personally took responsibility for attacking these and other popular preachers to minimise their influence and secure their expulsion. Bucer and his followers insisted that the council take control of all Christian worship in the city for the common good.

In response to the petition, the council set up a commission that proposed a city synod. For this gathering, Bucer provided a draft document of sixteen articles on church doctrine. The synod convened at the Church of the Penitent Magdalens to debate Bucer’s text, eventually accepting it in full. The three leaders were brought before the synod and questioned by Bucer. Ziegler was dismissed and allowed to stay in Strasbourg; Hoffmann was placed in prison by the city magistrates as a danger to the state; and Schwenckfeld left Strasbourg of his own accord.

Following the synod, the city council dragged its heels for several months. The synod commission, which included Bucer and Capito, decided to take the initiative and produced a draft ordinance for the regulation of the church. It proposed that the council retain almost complete control of the church, with responsibility for supervising doctrine, appointing church wardens, and maintaining moral standards. Still the council delayed, pushing the pastors to the brink of resignation. Only when the Hoffmman's followers seized power in Münster in the Münster Rebellion did the council act, fearing a similar incident in Strasbourg. On 4 March 1534, the council announced that Bucer’s Tetrapolitan Confession and his sixteen articles on church doctrine were official church statements of faith. All Anabaptists should either subscribe to these documents or leave the city. The decision established a new church in Strasbourg, with Capito declaring, "Bucer is the bishop of our church."