GREEK CATHOLICS IN AMERICA 



THE Uniat churches of the Byzantine or Greek Rite 

 were almost unknown to the United States some twen- 

 ty-five years ago. Occasionally a priest of that rite 

 from Syria came to America to ask assistance for his people 

 who were struggling amid the Moslems, but while his visit 

 was a matter of curiosity, his rite and the peoples who fol- 

 lowed it were wholly unknown to American Catholics. To- 

 day, however, emigration has increased to such an extent and 

 is drawn from so many lands and peoples that there are repre- 

 sentatives of most of the Eastern rites in America, and par- 

 ticularly those of the Greek Rite. These have lately arrived in 

 large numbers and have erected their churches all over the 

 country. The chief races which have brought the Greek Rite 

 with them to the United States are the various Slavs of Aus- 

 tria-Hungary, and they are now approaching such a position of 

 material well-being and intellectual development as to be reck- 

 oned with as one of the factors of Catholic life in the United 

 States. Other races have also brought the Greek Rite with 

 them and established it where they have settled. The advent 

 of the Slavs into the United States really commenced about 

 1879-1880. Those of the Greek Rite came from the north- 

 eastern portion of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, where they 

 inhabited chiefly the northern and southern slopes of the Car- 

 pathian Mountains, which form the boundary line between Ga- 

 licia and Hungary. The first of the newcomers were miners 

 in the coal districts. During the troublous times in Pennsyl- 

 vania, from 1871 to 1879, when the "Molly Maguires" ter- 

 rorized the mining districts and practically defied the au- 

 thority of the State, the various coal companies determined to 

 look abroad for foreign labor to replace their lawless workmen, 

 and so they introduced the Austrian Slav to the mining re- 

 gions of Pennsylvania. His success in wage-earning induced 

 his countrymen to follow, and the coal companies and iron- 



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