[An article reprinted from "The Eastern Churches Quarterly, by Rev. Stephen C. Gulovich, Ph.D., S.T.D. Fr. Gulovich preceded me as pastor of SS. Peter & Paul's Church, Granville, NY - where he died in 1957.]

By virtue of a decision made in the early part of 1924 by the Holy See, the so-called Greek-Ruthenian Catholics residing in the United States of America were given their own diocesan administration totally independent [ed. note: for background cf. previous postings to this conference.] of any American bishop. As a result of experience gained in the first two decades of the present century the Holy See established two hierarchical centres for these Ruthenians which have been variously referred to as dioceses, ordinariates, and more recently officially referred to by the Holy See as Exarchates (1). [Ed. note: currently they are now "Eparchies" - of which there are four for Ruthenians in the United States and four for Ukrainians. Canada has another group, for Ukrainians. There are no Ruthenian Eparchies or Exarchates in Canada]. The limits which were employed by the Holy See to divide the two jurisdictions were not the conventional limits of territory, which is the customary basis for delineating jurisdictions. Instead, and perhaps only as a temporary measure, the jurisdiction was divided on the basis of national political factors, viz., all Catholics of the Slavonic-Byzantine rite whose forbears originated in the Galician ecclesiastical province of what is now the Western Ukraine were placed under the jurisdiction of a bishop of Ukrainian extraction with headquarters at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; while all others, whose forbears originated int he lands formerly subject to the Hungarian crown, were placed under a bishop with headquarters at Munhall, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pittsburgh. This second Exarchate is actually composed of several nationalities, viz., Ruthenians, Slovaks, Hungarians and Croats, and is commonly referred to as the Pittsburgh Catholic Ordinariate of the Slavonic-Byzantine rite. The Exarchate of Philadelphia, also known as the Ukrainian diocese of Philadelphia [now the Archeparchy of Philadelphia, as Munhall has become the Archeparchy of Pittsburgh] is composed of Ukrainian elements exclusively. In the present paper we intend to discuss the second Exarchate [Eparchy] which we will call, for the sake of convenience, the Pittsburgh Exarchate [Eparchy].

According to information garnered from the official Catholic Directory for 1946 [the time at which this article was written] the Pittsburgh Exarchate has 272,401 souls scattered over the area of thirteen states (2). The Exarchate is governed by one bishop, the Most Reverend Basil Takach, D.D. [currently by Archbishop Stephen J. Kocisko, D.D., Archeparch of Pittsburgh, Most Reverend Michael J. Dudick, D.D., Eparch of Passaic, Most Reverend Thomas Dolinay, Eparch of Van Nuys, and Most Reverend Andrew Pataki, Eparch of Parma, Ohio], consecrated titular bishop of Zela on 15th June, 1924 at St. Athanasius' church in Rome. The direction of souls, who are distributed among 155 churches with resident pastors and thirty-two missions, is entrusted to 153 priests of whom three belong to the Order of St. Benedict, and five to the Friars Minor (3). At the present time forty-eight students are preparing for the priesthood in seminaries. There are ninety-four sisters of the Basilian Order under the jurisdiction of the bishop, of whom fifty-one are qualified teachers. The Exarchate has twelve parochial schools, with 1674 registered pupils. In addition to this there is an orphanage belonging to one of the fraternal organizations but at the present time operating under the direction and supervision of the bishop. Connected with the mother-house of the Basilian Sisters is a home for the aged, restricted for the time being to homeless women.

These statistics, which perhaps are not too impressive, hide an impressive story of a prodigious struggle and marvelous accomplishment of an insignificant people.

The first ten or fifteen years of the Slavonic-Byzantine church in America lacks the accentuation of political factions. In those early days, when the Slavonic immigrants were anxious to organize their own parishes and build their own churches, they were not too anxious about national descent and political convictions. They sought out those who worshipped God according to the Byzantine customs and were anxious to have their own clergy regardless of their national origins. Hence in the first few years we find parishes with a politically mixed congregation presided over by priests who came from different sections of Europe. Later, when news about the success of the first immigrants reached Europe and relatives and friends began to arrive in great numbers, we begin to notice the appearance of parishes which assume a national character; in some instances they are composed of people coming form the same village or district. Consequently the early history of the Slav-Byzantine church in America really and truly represents the common heritage of both Exarchates.

As stated above, the Exarchate of Pittsburgh is composed of people belonging to four politically different extractions. The vast majority, however, belongs to the Rusin [Ruthenian] extraction. and since political issues played an important part in the development of this Exarchate, it will be necessary to give a summary account of the political background of this political group (4).

The Ruthenian people have too frequently been the object of misunderstanding even by studious men who have taken a genuine interest in their past and present. Most frequently they have been confused with Ukrainians, a more numerous and more articulate people. Without desiring to enter into a political controversy, we simply state a few historical facts in the hope that this will clarify the issue once and for all.

Fr. Hal Stockert is a Byzantine Catholic parish priest from Granville, New York and founder and sysop of Fishnet, the Catholic branch of the OSC electronic online service. For signup information, call 800-733-2863. This document is reprinted with permision.