The opening of the 19th century saw the Hasidic sect transformed. Once a rising force outside the establishment, the "tzaddiqim" now became an important and often dominant power in most of Eastern Europe. The slow process of encroachment, which mostly begun with forming an independent "Shtibel" and culminated in the Righteous becoming an authority figure (either alongside or above the official rabbinate) for the entire community, overwhelmed many towns even in "Misnagdic" stronghold of Lithuania, far more so in Congress Poland and the vast majority in Podolia, Volhynia and Galicia. It began to make inroads into Bukovina, Bessarabia and the westernmost frontier of autochthonic pre-WWII Hasidism, in northeastern Hungary, where the Seer's disciple Moses Teitelbaum (I) was appointed in Ujhely.