The First Churches

The earliest Carpatho-Rusyn immigrants settled initially in northeastern Pennsylvania and took jobs as miners in the anthracite coal fields of the region. The émigrés, however, soon began to realize that what had identified, preserved and sustained them in the “Old Country” and in the long journey to America was painfully missing in their strange, new and difficult surroundings. They had no spiritual home, no place of worship that they could call their own, and no church where they could practice their distinctive Greek Catholic faith. Thus, they began to organize parishes, build churches and petition for priests to be sent from Europe. Continue reading