USA PRINCE, PRIEST AND MISSIONARY

Another laborer in the early mission fields of the USA is SERVANT of GOD DEMETRIUS AUGUSTINE GALLITZIN

With Father Peter Helbron- St. Peter's Church

, who  was born at The Hague in 1770. He was a scion of one of the oldest, wealthiest, and most illustrious families of Russia. His father, Prince Demetrius, was Russian ambassador to Holland at the time of his son's birth.For 14 years previously he had been the Russian ambassador to France, an intimate acquaintance of Diderot, Voltaire, d'Alembert, and other rationalists of the day. 

Though nominally an Orthodox Russian, he accepted and openly professed the principles of an infidel philosophy. In 1768, he married the Countess Amalie, the only daughter of the then celebrated Prussian Field-Marshal von Schmettau. Her mother, Baroness von Ruffert, being a Catholic, Amalie was baptized in the Catholic Church, but her religious education was neglected, and it was not until 1786 that she became a fervent Catholic, which she remained until her death on April 27, 1806. 

In his youth his most constant companion was William Frederick, son of William V, then reigning Stadtholder of the Netherlands. This friendship continued even after William became King of the Netherlands and Duke of Luxemburg.  Demetri was by nature, rather reserved and timid

After his mother's return to Catholicism in 1786, he was greatly influenced by her circle of intellectuals, priests, and aristocrats. At the age of 17, Prince Dimitri was formally received into the  Church. To please his mother, whose birth and marriage occurred on 28 August, the feast of St Augustine, he assumed that name when he was confirmed, and thereafter wrote his name Demetrius Augustine.  A cousin, Elizabeth Gallitzin, would also eventually convert and join the Society of the Sacred Heart, founding a number of religious houses in the United States.

His father, who had been planning a military career for him, was quite unhappy with the change and was barely dissuaded from sending his son to Saint Petersburg, where he hoped a stint in a Russian Guards Regiment would force his son back into Orthodoxy. In 1792, his son was appointed aide-de-camp to General von Lillien, the commander of the Austrian troops in the Duchy of Brabant but, after the death of Leopold II of Austria and the murder of King Gustav III of Sweden, Prince Dimitri, like all other foreigners, was dismissed from Austrian Service.

As was the custom among young aristocrats at the time, he then set out to complete his education by travel. The French Revolution had made European tours unsafe, so his parents decided that he should spend two years in traveling through America, the West Indies, and other foreign lands. His mother provided him with letters of introduction from the prince-bishops of Hildesheim and Paderborn to Bishop John Carroll of Baltimore. With his tutor, Father Brosius, afterwards a prominent missionary in the United States, he embarked from Rotterdam in 1792,  landing in Baltimore. To avoid the inconvenience and expense of travelling as a Russian prince, he assumed the name of Augustine Schmettau. This name then became Schmet or Smith, and he was known as Augustine Smith for many years.

Not long after his arrival, he became interested in the needs of the Church in the United States. To the shock and horror of his father, Prince Dimitri decided to join the priesthood and offered to forgo his inheritance.

Demetrius Augustine entered the newly established Seminary of St. Sulpice in Baltimore being  the first to make all his theological studies in the United States. He was ordained in 1795, by Archbishop Carroll.  

In the Allegheny Mountains, in 1799, Father Demetrius founded the settlement of Loretto, Pennsylvania.  His military training had taught him engineering fundamentals. He named the town after the place of Marian devotion in Italy.

With Father Gallitzin in the lead, Loretto became the first English-speaking Catholic settlement in the United States west of the Allegheny Front. For several years St. Michael's Church was the only Catholic Church between Lancaster, Pennsylvania and St. Louis, Missouri. The church today is known as the Basilica of St. Michael the Archangel.

In 1802, Father Gallitzin became a naturalized citizen of the United States under the name Augustine Smith. Seven years after he was naturalized and became a citizen of the United States, an Act passed by the General Assembly of Pennsylvania authorized him to establish his name, Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin, and to enjoy all of the benefits accruing to him under the name Augustine Smith.

For twenty years Father Gallitzin  labored alone in a vast mission whose Catholic population was constantly increasing. In 1834 Father Lemke was sent to his assistance, assigned the northern part of Cambria County as his sphere of action.

In the meantime Father Gallitzin's reputation for sanctity, the fame of his talents, and the account of his labors had spread far and wide. It was his deep humility as well as his love for his community that prevented his advancement to the honors of the Church.  He accepted the office of Vicar-General for Western Pennsylvania, conferred on him by Bishop Conwell of Philadelphia, in 1827, because he felt that in that office he could promote the interests of the Church; but he strongly resisted the proposals to nominate him for the position of first Bishop of Cincinnati and first Bishop of Detroit.

For many years before his death he lived in the hope of seeing Loretto made an episcopal see, for Loretto was then a flourishing mission and the centre of a constantly increasing Catholic population, while Pittsburgh was a small town containing but few Catholics.  After forty-one years spent on the rugged heights of the Alleghenies, he died as he had lived, poor.  On coming to McGuire's Settlement he found a dense wilderness; he left it dotted with fertile farms.  

Servant of God Demetrius Gallitzin was buried, according to his desire, midway between his residence and the church (they were about thirty feet apart); in 1847 his remains were transferred to a vault in a field nearer the town, over which a humble monument was erected out of squared blocks of rough mountain stone. In 1891 his remains were taken from the decayed coffin of cherry wood and placed in a metallic casket. Iin 1899, on the occasion of the centenary celebration of the foundation of the Loretto Mission, the rude monument was capped by a pedestal of granite, and this in turn by a bronze statue of the prince-priest, donated by Charles M. Schwab, who also built the large stone church, which was solemnly consecrated October 2, 1901.

 

This great missionary, in spite of his noble early life, chose a path to God that has led to his sanctity, once again showing that anyone can become a saint!