GREEK CATHOLICS IN AMERICA 195 



recognized as a Catholic priest in good standing. However, he 

 proceeded to Shenandoah, where under great difficulties and 

 discouragements he organized his congregation and for about 

 a year celebrated Mass and other services in a hired hall, for 

 he was unable to obtain the use of the local Latin churches for 

 Greek services. The matter of his regularity and his accept- 

 ance as a priest in Pennsylvania for the Ruthenians was finally 

 arranged through Cardinal Sembratovitch. Early in 1886 he 

 completed at Shenandoah a little frame church dedicated to 

 St. Michael the Archangel, the first Greek Catholic church in 

 America. He then organized there the first Greek Catholic 

 Society, that of St. Nicholas, built and organized a small pa- 

 rochial school, and then proceeded to form congregations and 

 to found churches in other places where the Ruthenians were 

 thickly settled. During his stay he organized congregations 

 and started churches at Hazleton (1887), Kingston (1888), 

 and Olyphant (1888) in Pennsylvania, at Jersey City, New 

 Jersey (1889), and at Minneapohs, Minnesota (1889). Find- 

 ing his Ruthenian people without any reading-matter in their 

 own language, he sent to Galicia for Russian type, and in the 

 latter part of 1886 he obtained a few fonts from the Shev- 

 chenko printing office at Lemberg. He then commenced the 

 publication in "phonetic" Ruthenian of a small paper issued 

 every two weeks at Shenandoah under the name of "America." 

 This paper lived until about 1890, but got involved in the labor 

 troubles in the mining districts, which destroyed much of its 

 usefulness. In the spring of 1887 the Metropolitan of Lem- 

 berg sent him another priest. Rev. Zeno Lakovitch (unmar- 

 ried), and a lay teacher, Volodimir Semenovitch, from the Uni- 

 versity of Lemberg. Father Lakovitch labored at Kingston 

 and at Wilkesbarre, where he died a year later. In 1888 Rev. 

 Constantine Andrukovitch was sent from Lemberg, and, in 

 addition to his parochial work, he, with Father Volanski, un- 

 dertook to establish a series of stores in several towns in Penn- 

 sylvania to sell goods to the Ruthenians and thus avoid the 

 enormous prices which the mining companies charged them. 

 The business venture was unsuccessful, and, with other mat- 

 ters, it caused the recall of Father Volanski to Galicia. He 

 remained there some time, then was sent as a missionary to 

 Brazil, where his wife died, when he returned to Galicia, where 

 he was a parish priest until his death in 1905. This business 



