crossed into France, and his immigration status there, at least until 1955, is unclear. In 1948, the Eastern Orthodox Romanian figures in Paris chose to break communion with the Patriarchate in Bucharest and in the following year, Puiu created the Romanian Orthodox Diocese of Western Europe. In this new position, he put legionnaire priest Boldeanu in charge of the largest Parisian congregation. Sima, who had survived the war and remained the leader of a now exiled Iron Guard, recognized the importance of émigré Orthodox Church structures and re-established contact with Puiu in 1949. Other former Romanian politicians in exile, such as Nicolae Rădescu, also visited him in Paris at that time. Puiu behaved as a leader of the Romanian diaspora in Western Europe and embodied an element of resistance to the new Church hierarchy in Bucharest. The period between 1949 to 1953 was marked by legal and canonical conflict over the situated in Rue Jean de Beauvais in Paris. The forceful removal of superior Martinian Iovanovici in 1949 was due to his close relationship with the former king Carol II. The opposition to Iovanovici was led by Puiu's protégé, Boldeanu, who had gained the community's trust and would retain it over the years. The communist government in Bucharest failed to obtain legal control over the edifice, which, by 1953, was secured by the local association of worshipers. However, under Eastern Orthodox cannon law, the situation of the parish was problematic. A long term solution was finally found in 1954 when Puiu entered in communion with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR) and the parish council officially recognized Puiu's authority on 11 April. The Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church defrocked Puiu in 1950. The Holy Synod's decision, written by Metropolitan Bălan, labeled him "an agent of the Vatican" and was taken under pressure from the communist authorities. The latter felt threatened by Puiu in the context of a major crisis in the Romanian diaspora in the United States. The bishop of the Romanian Orthodox Episcopate of America, based in Detroit, , had traveled to Bucharest in 1939 and had been unable to return to the United Statesbecause of the outbreak of World War II. Still in Romania in 1948, he was deposed by the new regime. The Holy Synod in Bucharest elected Andrei Moldovan to the vacant seat in 1950, but the local worshipers refused to accept him,