 These were difficult years for the Church in Subcarpathia as it experienced the re-annexion in 1938 by Hungary, as the result of the First Vienna Award, then direct invasion from Nazi Germany and lastly the Soviet Red Army.On 24 September 1944, at the young age of 33, he was consecrated bishop and appointed apostolic administrator of the Eparchy of Mukacheve in the cathedral of Uzhorod by Bishop Miklós Dudás, O.S.B.M., in co-consecration by János Scheffler (Hungarian Greek Catholic bishop of Szatmár), and István Madarász (Hungarian Greek Catholic bishop of Kassa).He immediately had to face the Soviet Red Army, which occupied the churches, assigned them to the Russian Orthodox Church and arrested their priests.