Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin

Priest, born in The Hague, The Netherlands. He became a Roman Catholic in 1787, emigrated to the USA in 1792, and was ordained a priest in 1795. Sent as a missionary to Cambria County, PA, he founded the town of Loretto (1799). He was vicar-general for W Pennsylvania, and wrote several tracts defending his faith against Protestant attack.

Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin (1770-1840), was a Roman Catholic priest, called The Apostle of the Alleghenies, born at The Hague on December 22, 1770. so, too, for many years was his mother, Countess Adelheid Amalie Gallitzin (1748-1806), until a severe illness in 1786 led her back to the Roman Catholic Church, in which she had been reared.

At the age of 17, Demetrius was received into the Roman Catholic Church. Gallitzin then was sent to work in a church mission at Port Tobacco, Maryland, whence he was soon transferred to the Conewago district.

In the Allegheny Mountains, in 1799, Gallitzin founded the settlement of Loretto, Pennsylvania in what is now Cambria County, Pennsylvania. With Gallitzin in the lead, Loretto became the first English-speaking Roman Catholic settlement in the United States west of the Allegheny Front. (In addition to McGuire's patrimony, Gallitzin is believed to have spent $150,000 (USD) of his own funds later, to purchase some additional 20,000 acres (81 km²), which it is said he gave or sold at low prices to newly arriving Catholic settlers.) Gallitzin dedicated Loretto's parish church to the honor of St. Michael the Archangel, both as a nod to Gallitzin's Russian roots and, indirectly, to Michael McGuire.

In 1802, Gallitzin became a naturalized citizen of the United States under the name Augustine Smith. After his father's death, he was disinherited by czar Alexander I of Russia in 1808 due to Gallitzin's Roman Catholicism and ecclesiastical profession. Nonetheless, after her death, Gallitzin received little or nothing more.

Gallitzin felt free to discard the name Augustine Smith in 1809. Gallitzin also soon found himself deeply in debt. Later, when Gallitzin was suggested for the see of Philadelphia in 1814, Bishop Carroll objected. Bishop Carroll agreed Gallitzin's debt load was contracted for excellent and charitable purposes. Nonetheless it was not clear Gallitzin had the financial acumen to run a diocese as important as Philadelphia, Carroll believed. Later, Gallitzin is said to have refused the bishopric of Cincinnati.

Gallitzin died at Loretto on May 6, 1840 and was buried near St. Michael's church in Loretto. Gallitzin's part in building up the Roman Catholic Church in western Pennsylvania cannot be estimated; Schwab funded the construction of a large stone church, which is the current basilica, at Prince Gallitzin's tomb. Schwab also provided funds for a bronze statue of Gallitzin.

The nearby town of Gallitzin, Pennsylvania is named for western Pennsylvania's first English-speaking priest. In the mid-1960s, Pennsylvania christened a new nearby state park in honor of Prince Gallitzin, as he is fondly called locally.

Among Gallitzin's controversial pamphlets are: A Defence of Catholic Principles (1816), Letter to a Protestant Friend on the Holy Scriptures (1820), Appeal to the Protestant Public (1834), and Six Letters of Advice (1834), a reply to what Gallitzin saw as attacks on the Roman Catholic Church by a Presbyterian synod.

On June 6, 2005, it was announced that Gallitzin had been named a Servant of God by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, the first step on the path toward possible future sainthood. Gallitzin, Prince and Priest, (New York, 1873) Kittell, Souvenir of Loretto Centenary, (Cresson, Pa., 1899)