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On [[April 23]], 1972, Bishop Teofil signed a pastoral letter in which he reaffirmed his faithfulness to the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad.
On [[May 8]], 1972, he went to the Uniate Monastery at Chevetogne, France, to greet the visiting Patriarch Justinian, and on the following day, wrote to his diocese that he was, "henceforth, after years and years of going astray, once again in the bosom of the Mother Church". The Council at his Cathedral notified Bishop Teofil they "no longer depended on him", and on [[May 21]], 1972, Metropolitan Philaret came from New York to celebrate the Liturgy and to announce that he had "received the Diocese and all its parishes under his direct authority". The Synod of the Church Abroad deposed Bishop Teofil and reduced him to the monastic state for participating in the consecration of a deposed priest, Bishop Germain (Gilles Bertrand Hardy), as a Bishop for the [[French Orthodox Churchof France]] (two Hierarchs from Romania also participated in the consecration, Nicolae {Corneanu, b.1923; Met. Nicolae was the center of controversy in May 2008 when he received communion from a Romanian Uniate Bishop at the consecration of the new Uniate Queen of Peace church in Timisoara, Romania}, Archbishop of Timisoara and Metropolitan of Banat, and Bishop Anthony of Ploesti).
In December 1974 the Romanian Patriarchate elevated Bishop Teofil to [[Archbishop]]. Totally cut off from the Romanian emigre community in Paris, Teofil, able to speak to one of his former priests, admitted he had committed a grave error in leaving the Church Abroad, and further, said that he had become a hostage of the Securitate, the Romanian equivalent of the KGB.