Luther’s translation of the Bible, and throwing all the obstacles he could in the way of Protestant worship, he was compelled to grant them very considerable toleration, and to overlook the infraction of his decrees, that he might secure their aid to repel the Turks.  Providence seemed to overrule the Moslem invasion for the protection of the Protestant faith.  Notwithstanding all the efforts of Ferdinand, the reformers gained ground in Austria as in other parts of Germany.

The two articles upon which the Protestants at this time placed most stress were the right of the clergy to marry and the administration of the communion under both kinds, as it was called; that is, that the communicants should partake of both the bread and the wine.  Ferdinand, having failed entirely in inducing the council to submit to any reform, opened direct communication with the pope to obtain for his subjects indulgence in respect to these two articles.  In advocacy of this measure he wrote: 

“In Bohemia no persuasion, no argument, no violence, not even arms and war, have succeeded in abolishing the use of the cup as well as the bread in the sacrament.  In fact the Church itself permitted it, although the popes revoked it by a breach of the conditions on which it was granted.  In the other States, Hungary, Austria, Silesia, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, Bavaria and other parts of Germany, many desire with ardor the same indulgence.  If this concession is granted they may be reunited to the Church, but if refused they will be driven into the party of the Protestants.  So many of the priests have been degraded by their diocesans for administering the sacrament in both kinds, that the country is almost deprived of priests.  Hence children die or grow up to maturity without baptism; and men and women, of all ages and of all ranks, live like the brutes, in the grossest ignorance of God and of religion.”

In reference to the marriage of the clergy he wrote:  “If a permission to the clergy to marry can not be granted, may not married men of learning and probity be ordained, according to the custom of the eastern church; or married priests be tolerated for a time, provided they act according to the Catholic and Christian faith?  And it may be justly asked whether such concessions would not be far preferable to tolerating, as has unfortunately been done, fornication and concubinage?  I can not avoid adding, what is a common observation, that priests who live in concubinage are guilty of greater sin than those who are married; for the last only transgress a law which is capable of being changed, whereas the first sin against a divine law, which is capable of neither change nor dispensation.”

The pope, pressed with all the importunity which Ferdinand could urge, reluctantly consented to the administration of the cup to the laity, but resolutely refused to tolerate the marriage of the clergy.  Ferdinand was excessively annoyed by the stubbornness of the court of Rome in its refusal to submit to the most reasonable reform, thus rendering it impossible for him to allay the religious dissensions which were still spreading and increasing in acrimony.  His disappointment was so great that it is said to have thrown him into the fever of which he died on the 25th of July, 1564.