Luther nailed the Ninety-five Theses to the door of the church in 1517. The synodals were not elected by the parishioners, but two-thirds were delegated by the church leaders, now called bishops, of the 28 Protestant church bodies, including the three intact ones, and one third were emissaries of Müller's Spiritual Ministerium. Only such synodals were admitted, who would "uncompromisingly stand up any time for the National Socialist state" (). The national synod confirmed Müller as Reich's Bishop. The synodals of the national synod decided to waive their right to legislate in church matters and empowered Müller's Spiritual Ministerium to act as he wished. Furthermore, the national synod usurped the power in the 28 Protestant church bodies and provided the new so-called bishops of the 28 Protestant church bodies with hierarchical supremacy over all clergy and laymen within their church organisation. The national synod abolished future election for the synods of the 28 Protestant church bodies. Henceforth synodals had to replace two-thirds of the outgoing synodals by co-optation, the remaining third was to be appointed by the respective bishop. Attempted merger into the Reich Church The general synod () of the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union decided with the majority of the German Christian synodals to merge the church in the German Evangelical Church as of 1 March 1934 on. The synods of 25 other Protestant church bodies decided the same until the end of 1933. Only the synods of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria right of the river Rhine, led by Hans Meiser, and the Evangelical State Church in Württemberg, presided by Theophil Wurm, opposed and decided not to merge. This made also the Evangelical Lutheran State Church of Hanover (one of the few Protestant churches in Germany using the title of bishop already since the 1920s, thus prior to the Nazi era), with State Bishop August Marahrens, change its mind. But the Evangelical Lutheran State Church of Hanover hesitated to openly confront the Nazi Reich's government, still searching for an understanding even after 1934. Niemöller, Rabenau and Kurt Scharf (Congregation in Sachsenhausen (Oranienburg)) circulated an appeal, calling the pastors up not to fill in the forms, meant to prove their Aryan descent, distributed by the Evangelical Supreme Church Council. Thus its president Werner furloughed the three on 9 November. For more and more purposes Germans had to prove their so-called Aryan descent, which usually was confirmed