He took 78 from 108 votes; Popasu, in second place, had 20. He was sworn in on September 10, and, on September 12, became intimate counsel of Franz Joseph, by virtue of his ecclesiastical office. He would later become a Knight of the Leopoldine Order and receive the Order of the Iron Crown, First Class. In later years, abbot Iosif Goldiș accused Ivačković of simony, alleging that his election had been fixed by Babeș, his Arad protege. According to other accounts, Ivačković became Metropolitan by accident, simply by being the oldest viable candidate—albeit one described by contemporaries as a "powerless old man" or an "invalid". Pro-Hungarians in the synod accepted the principle of seniority, because it opened the way for their candidate, Miron Romanul, who was second-oldest among the prelates. Romanul's own protege, Slavici, provides a contrasting interpretation. He claims that several pro- and anti-Hungarian factions coalesced to prevent Bishop Miron being elected, and pushed Ivačković as a safe candidate. For part of his reign in Sibiu, Ivačković was attracted into disputes surrounding the Diocese of Bukovina—located in Cisleithania, and populated by Romanians, Ukrainians, and Rusyns. In December 1873, Theophil Bendella, who vied for the office of Bukovina bishop and wanted to join it with the Transylvanian Metropolis, claimed that Ivačković supported him. In April 1874, Ivačković and Popasu together consecrated Theophil Bendella in Sibiu. Metropolitan Prokopije only held the Metropolitan seat at Sibiu to July 1874, soon before taking up the post of Serbian Patriarch in Karlovci. This was the consequence of a political conflict between the new Hungarian administration and the Karlovci prelates. Following the death of Patriarch Samuilo Maširević in 1870, the liberal disciples of Svetozar Miletić began organizing and reforming the Serbian dioceses. Initially, the vote had gone to Arsenije Stojković, who was however vetoed by government. Ivačković's name was first brought up, as a compromise solution, by Jovan Subotić.