Poland, which emerged as one of the main terrains of struggle between the Protestant Reformation movement and the Catholic Church's counter-reformation. From 1562 he served as a parson in Rohatyn, and around 1564 he took holy orders. That year he became a canon, and the following year he also served as chancellor of the Lwów chapter. From 1566 to 1567 he was chaplain at the court of castellan Jan Krzysztof Tarnowski (the royal secretary to King Sigismund II Augustus); after Tarnowski's death he returned to Lwów, taking up the position of the cathedral preacher. In 1568 he departed for Rome, arriving in 1569 and joining the Society of Jesus. In 1571 he returned to Poland, and preached successively at Pułtusk, Lwów, Jarosław, Warsaw (where he delivered a sermon before the Sejm) and Płock, where he visited the court of Queen Anna Jagiellon, who would become one of his patrons. A leading proponent of counter-reformation, Skarga commonly preached against non-Catholic denominations and helped secure funds and privileges for the Society of Jesus. In 1573 he was rector of the Wilno Jesuit College, precursor to the Wilno Academy (Vilnius University). In 1577 he became a professor at the Kraków Academy. That year he also finished one of his most important works, The Lives of the Saints (Żywoty świętych), which was published two years later. In 1579 he became the first rector of the Wilno Academy. In 1576 he published Pro Sacratissima Eucharistia contra haeresim Zwinglianam, ad Andream Volanum (For the Most Sacred Eucharist, against the Zwinglian Heresy, to Andrzej Wolan). In 1582 he published Artes duodecim Sacramentariorum, sive Zwinglio-calvinistarum (The Seven Pillars on Which Stands Catholic Doctrine on the Most Sacred Sacrament of the Altar). Both these works formed part of Skarga's dialogue with the Calvinist author Andrzej Wolan, which took the form of a series of rival polemics over a number of years. Wolan was a notable figure in the Commonwealth politics—not only a publicist, but a royal secretary, diplomat and Sejm deputy. In 1584 Skarga was transferred to the new Jesuit College at Kraków. On 26 March 1587 he founded the Polish version of the Mount of Piety, a pawnbroker run as a charity and called in Polish the Bank Pobożny (lit. the Pious Bank). In 1588 the newly elected King Sigismund III Vasa established the new post of court preacher, and Skarga became the first priest to hold it.