 However, in 1993, after long conflict resulting from growing antipathy among the Eastern Orthodox churches towards a western liturgical and cultural expression of Orthodoxy, the Romanian Synod issued a letter to Bishop Germain and his church, communicating its decision to withdraw its oversight of the and to sever all ties with it, inviting individual parishes of the to be absorbed into the local diocese of the Romanian Church.Some eight years later, in 2001, the Romanian Orthodox Church claimed to have deposed Bishop Germain from the episcopate and returned him to the lay state.However, in the original 1993 letter to Bishop Germain, which was copied to all of the clergy of the , no mention was made of such a decision.