One of the early Byzantine Catholic churches--Lower Greenfield-Pittsburgh, PA

The earliest Carpatho-Rusin immigrants settled initially in northeastern Pennsylvania and took jobs as miners in the anthracite coal fields of the region. The emigres, however, soon began to realize that what had identified them, preserved them 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, no church where they could practice their distinctive Greek Catholic faith. Thus, the Carpatho-Rusin people began to organize parishes, to build churches and to petition for priests to be sent from Europe.

In 1884, the Reverend John Voliansky, a Greek Catholic priest from Galicia, answered the call to minister to the newly arrived faithful in the United States. In 1884, Father Volansky organized the first Greek Catholic parish in the United States in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. Within a short period of time, Father Volansky's own pastoral work lead to the establishment of additional Greek Catholic parishes in Freeland, Pennsylvania (1886), in Hazleton, Pennsylvania (1887), in Kingston, Pennsylvania (1888), in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania (1888), in Olyphant, Pennsylvania (1888), in Jersey City, New Jersey (1889), in Minneapolis, Minnesota (1889), Whiting, Indiana (1889) and in Passaic, New Jersey (1890). By 1894, with the arrival of additional clergy primarily from the Prešov and Mukacevo Eparchies, there were thirty Greek Catholic parishes serving more than one hundred thousand faithful.

In time, more and more Carpatho-Rusin immigrants would arrive in America. Steadily, they would move ever westward. Their destination was Western Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio with employment in the region's steel mills and coal mines. This movement westward lead to the establishment of new Greek Catholic parishes in Duquesne, Pennsylvania (1890), in Leisenring, Pennsylvania (1892), in Cleveland, Ohio (1893), in Punxsatawney, Pennsylvania (1893), in Trauger, Pennsylvania (1894), in Johnstown, Pennsylvania (1895), in Braddock, Pennsylvania (1896), in Homestead, Pennsylvania (1897), in Marblehead, Ohio (1897), in Pleasant City, Ohio (1898), in Barnesboro, Pennsylvania (1898), in Charleroi, Pennsylvania (1899), in Pittsburgh (South Side), Pennsylvania (1900), in Windber, Pennsylvania (1900) and in Youngstown, Ohio (1900)