The May Laws had the fullest support of Imperial German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, though their actual author was Falk, who held state authority over the regulation of public worship as the Prussian Minister of Culture. Preliminary to the May Laws was the abolition of the Catholic department in the ministry of public worship (1871), the placing of the State in exclusive control of education, and the expulsion of the Jesuits from the empire (1873). A year later a like expulsion was decreed against the Redemptorists; Lazarists; Priests of the Holy Ghost, and Nuns of the Sacred Heart as being religious associations allied to the Jesuits.