The Princess was also involved in the conflict of influence over Stephen and his Moldavian Metropolis. By the time of her move to Moldavia, Maria and her Theodoro relatives supported the attempted Catholic–Orthodox union and its Latin Patriarchate of Constantinople, being especially close to Basilios Bessarion. The project also involved John, the Metropolitan of Gothia, who networked between Theodoro, Moldavia, and the Kingdom of Hungary. Zuan Tzamplakon, who had negotiated Maria's marriage to Stephen, also acted as Bessarion's personal envoy. With Maria, he managed to steer Stephen closer to the Catholic world. As noted by scholar Dan Ioan Mureșan, Tzamplakon and Maria's work may have strained Stephen's relationship with the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople and the local church hierarchy, including Bishop Teoctist. This, he argues, is why Maria appears as a blank space in the "Gospel" of Humor Monastery: "the monk Nicodim [...] simply refused to depict [Stephen's] new wife". Other researches believe that Maria was painted in that miniature, but then erased on Stephen's orders.