Award, which ceded parts of Transylvania to Hungary, further weakened his regime and on 6 September 1940, Carol was forced to abdicate. An openly pro-German coalition of the military, headed by marshal Ion Antonescu, and the Iron Guard took over. The head of the Romanian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Nicodim Munteanu, reacted cautiously and his September 1940 address was unenthusiastic. Puiu on the other hand benefited from the regime change as he was quickly reinstated as Metropolitan of Bukovina. According to Popa, this entails that Simedrea had not been properly seated as Metropolitan, or, at least, that was the pretext invoked by the Iron Guard to return Puiu to his old position. The Legion's cooperation with Antonescu ended violently in January 1941. Indeed, seeking full control of the Government, the legionnaires organized an insurrection known as the Legionnaires' rebellion. However, the coup failed and in the aftermath, Puiu was once more replaced as Metropolitan of Bukovina by Simedrea. Several hundred legionnaires, including Horia Sima and other leadership figures, managed to escape to Nazi Germany. Puiu would join this émigré Iron Guard community in the final stages of World War II. Exarch of Transnistria On 22 June 1941, German armies with Romanian support attacked the Soviet Union. After initial military success, Romania regained control over Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina and, following an agreement between Antonescu and Hitler, also occupied the territory between the rivers Dniester and Bug. The name given to this province was Transnistria, and it would become the scene of mass murder. Under Antonescu's regime, 146,423 Jews from Bessarabia and Bukovina were deported to Transnistria, with at least 75,000 of them dying; 25,500 Roma were also deported there, of which 11,000 survived. Moreover, at least 130,000 local Ukrainian Jews were murdered under the Romanian occupation. On 15 August 1941, under the assumption that the Soviet atheist rule had destroyed the Russian Orthodox Church in Transnistria, the decided to establish a mission and "re-evangelize" the locals. The main architect of the enterprise was Archimandrite Iuliu Scriban. Antonescu's decree of 19 August 1941, which made the occupation of Transnistria official, explicitly stated that the churches which had been closed by the Soviets were to be re-opened and efforts were to be made to return the local population to its spiritual traditions. The Government pressured the Romanian Orthodox Church to extend its authority over the occupied territories and establish a regular bishopric. Initially,