Sergius also formed the "Temporary Patriarchal Council" (later called "Synod") which received recognition from the Soviet government. In 1934, Sergius assumed a more elevated title of ""His Beatitude", Metropolitan of Moscow and Kolomna" and in 1936, following a false report of Metropolitan Peter of Krutitsy's death in prison (in fact, he was still alive until his execution in 1937), Sergius assumed the position of "Patriarchal Locum Tenens". Despite his pledges that the ROC would not interfere in secular affairs and would be loyal to the state, the arrests and executions of Orthodox clergy by the GPU and later the NKVD, destruction of Orthodox cathedrals, churches, icons, seminaries and so on were commonplace throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Before the 1941 German invasion, for the entire USSR, only 4 bishops remained who were not imprisoned or exiled. Likewise, of the 50,000 Russian Orthodox priests in 1918, only 500 remained by 1935.