Loretto, Pensylvania founded by Russian Convert

The little town of Loretto in Western Pennsylvania, was founded in 1799 by a group of pious Catholic settlers under the guidance of a prince-priest, the Russian convert, Demetrius Gallitzin. As a boy Father Gallitzin knew no religion. His father, the Russian ambassador to Holland, had befriended the freethinkers Voltaire and Diderot; his mother, the Princess Amalie, was a lax Catholic. Suddenly grace enlightened the Princess as to her sorry state and she began to lead a very saintly life. Her conversion affected her teen age son Demetrius who, following her example, embraced the Catholic Faith wholeheartedly. Later, while he was in America, Demetrius entered the seminary and was ordained a priest. At the age of about twenty-nine he led a group of settlers West, and they named their settlement Loretto, after the city in Italy which is honored with the presence of the little house of the Holy Family of Nazareth. The prince-priest labored forty years in Pennsylvania. He died in 1840.