 Geneva reconsidered its expulsion of Calvin . Church attendance had dwindled and the political climate had changed ; as Bern and Geneva quarrelled over land , their alliance frayed . When Cardinal Jacopo <unk> wrote a letter to the city council inviting Geneva to return to the Catholic faith , the council searched for an ecclesiastical authority to respond to him . At first Pierre Viret was consulted , but when he refused , the council asked Calvin . He agreed and his <unk> ad <unk> ( Letter to <unk> ) strongly defended Geneva 's position concerning reforms in the church . On 21 September 1540 the council commissioned one of its members , Ami Perrin , to find a way to recall Calvin . An embassy reached Calvin while he was at a colloquy , a conference to settle religious disputes , in Worms . His reaction to the suggestion was one of horror in which he wrote , " Rather would I submit to death a hundred times than to that cross on which I had to perish daily a thousand times over . " 
