A town like Celje would not miss out on the contemporary spiritual movements that agitated the then morally bankrupt Europe. In Celje, a Minorite monk spoke in favour of Lutheranism as early as in 1528, while the main proponent of the new religion in Celje and the broader region was undoubtedly Baron Janez Ungnad who, as a result, was forced to move to Urach, Germany, in 1546. Primož Trubar, the most important Slovenian protestant and author of the first books in Slovenian, sought to spread the new teachings as a chaplain at the St. Maximillian Chapel in Celje. Bearing witness to the quickly rising following of the new religion among the population is the fact that the Protestants built a nice church and a cemetery in Govče near Žalec, in the vicinity of Celje, as early as in 1580. However, the new shrine would not last as the counter-reformation restored the previous order, banished the Protestants, and tore down their buildings.
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