In 1948, the Communist regime that had taken power adhered to Marxist–Leninist atheism and at Stalin's request, deposed all 12 bishops of the Greek-Catholic Church and, on October 21, 1948, the 250th anniversary of the Romanian Greek Catholic Union with the Roman Catholic Church, arranged the "spontaneous" passage of all its members (decree 358/1948), who were then some 1,500,000 in numbers, to the Romanian Orthodox Church, to which some of its property, including four cathedrals, were given, while the rest was confiscated by the State. The Catholic bishops, and many Greek-Catholic priests, were arrested for "antidemocratic activity", mainly for refusal to give up ties with the "reactionary" Holy See. In the meantime, the Orthodox Church was "purged" of priests unfriendly to the Communist regime and, for the next 40 years, it had good relations with the Communist authorities. Iuliu Hossu, Bishop of Cluj, refused the proposal of the Romanian Orthodox Patriarch, Iustinian Marina, to become the Orthodox Archbishop of Iasi and metropolitan of Moldavia, and thereby even the official successor to the Romanian Orthodox Patriarch himself. He remained under house arrest, and each year sent a Memorandum to the President of the Republic, asking that the country's laws and Romania's international agreements be observed with regard to the Romanian Greek-Catholic Church. They maintained their decision even when Bishop Iuliu Hossu imposed very strict conditions in regard to the “mănăstire"’s exploitation and the use of its outcomes. Finally, they overtook the “mănăstire” on the 22 august 1936 and kept it till 1948, when the liquidation of the Greek-catholic church was decided by communist decree.