The Roman Catholic Church, chiefly because it maintained close relations with the Vatican and was more organized than were the Muslim and Eastern Orthodox faiths, became a principal target of persecution as soon as the Communists assumed power. In May 1945 Monsignor Nigris, the apostolic nuncio in Albania, was arrested on charges of fomenting anti-Communist feelings and deported to Italy. In 1946 a number of Catholic clergymen were arrested and tried on charges of distributing leaflets against the regime; some were executed, others given long prison terms at hard labor. According to Vatican sources, from 1945 to 1953 the number of Catholic churches and chapels in Albania was reduced from 253 to 100. Both seminaries in the country were closed, and the number of monasteries dropped from ten to two. All twenty convents were closed, as were fifteen orphanages, sixteen church schools, and ten charitable institutions. Both Catholic printing presses were confiscated, and the publication of seven religious periodicals ceased. The ranks of Catholic priests were thinned from ninety-three in 1945 to ten in 1953, twenty-four having been executed, thirty-five imprisoned, ten either missing or dead, eleven drafted into the army, and three having escaped from the country. Secular officials and laymen active in church affairs also suffered execution, imprisonment, and harassment. The Catholic school system was completely eliminated. This included five secondary schools with a total enrollment of 570 and ten elementary and vocational schools with 2,750 pupils. All Catholic associations were suppressed. A severe blow against the Catholic church was struck in 1951, when the regime mustered a small group of clergymen to hold a national Catholic assembly to draw the statute for the church. As approved by the Council of Ministers on July 30 of that year, the statute provided that the "Catholic Church of Albania has a national character ... [and that] it shall no longer have any organizational, political, or economic relations with the Pope." The statute provided further that the church was to be directed both in religious and administrative matters by a new Catholic Episcopate, that relations concerning religious questions could be established only through governmental channels, and that the church would submit to the canon law of the world Catholic church only if the provisions of this law did not contradict the laws of the People's Republic of Albania.