 Dimitrie Sulima (Archbishop in 1821–1855), and Antonie Shokotov (1855–1871) allowed the parallel usage of both Romanian and Russian in church, and did not take any measures to infringe upon the linguistic specifics of the region.With the appointment of Pavel Lebedev (1871–1882), the situation changed radically, and the language of the locals was soon purged from the church.To prevent the printing of religious literature in Romanian, Lebedev closed down the printing press in Chișinău, collected from the region and burned the already printed books in Romanian (in the Cyrillic alphabet).