From the Archeparchy of Philadelphia...

The history of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in the USA started in 1884 with Father Ivan Voliansky (Wolanski) – the first Greek Catholic priest who came to serve in America.

It all began when the faithful in Shenandoah, PA wrote a letter to Metropolitan Sylvester Sembratovych of Lviv requesting a priest stating “something is lacking in us. Lacking to us is God, Whom we could adore in our own way”…here enters Fr. Ivan.

Fr. Ivan was a well-educated priest who completed his studies in the seminary in Vienna and knew many languages…old Chaldean, Syriac, Arabis, English, French, German, Portuguese, Slavic languages…to name a few. Although Fr. Ivan’s assignment was to be a parish priest to the faithful of Shenandoah, he served in many different ways:

✝️ establishing the first mutual aid brotherhood of St. Nicholas (Shenandoah - January 18, 1885)

⛪️ building the first Easter Catholic Church in Shenandoah in 1886

📚 creating Ukrainian reading houses or chytalni

🎶 organizing the first choir

📦 creating trade cooperatives

✏️ founded evening schools

📰 establishing and editing the first newspaper America (the first issue was published on August 15, 1886)

🪦 founding St. Michael's cemetery – the first cemetery for Greek Catholics in Shenandoah, PA;

⛏️ being a member of the American trade union Knights of Labor fighting for the rights of workers in the mining region.

Sadly, due to increasing protests by the Latin bishops in the States against married Eastern Catholic clergy serving in their territory, Metropolitan Sembratovych had to recalled Fr. Ivan. Fr. Ivan and his wife left America in June 1889. They remained missionaries and later continued their ministry in Brazil.