Residents recognize priest for helping build community, call for sainthood

LORETTO, Pa. (WJAC) – A Roman Catholic priest born of royalty helped form a community in modern-day Cambria County, not long after the inauguration of our nation's first president.

Prince Demetrius Gallitzin was born Dec. 22, 1770 to a royal Russian family.

Growing up, his family was not religious, but his mother converted to Catholicism when he was 17.

Soon after, his wealthy family was ready to send him to a new land.

“His parents, knowing that the European continent was too dangerous for studies and travels for their son, decided to send him to the new America,” said Frank Seymour, vice-postulator for Gallitzin’s sainthood.

Gallitzin studied at a seminary in Baltimore and soon informed his parents he was becoming a Catholic priest.

“The first priest to be ordained in the first diocese by the first bishop,” said Betty Seymour, postulator for Gallitzin’s sainthood.

Gallitzin became a missionary, expecting to be sent to the new frontier. He was summoned to a small settlement to read the last rights for a non-Catholic woman who feared death.

“He went to McGuire’s settlement. He found this Catholic community that really needed a priest,” Betty Seymour said. “[Michael] McGuire was willing to give several hundred acres of property if a priest would become a resident priest.”

Gallitzin purchased the ground and became a land agent, selling plots to new settlers for a reasonable price.

“Gallitzin is responsible for bringing about 5,000 people into this county,” Frank Seymour said.

A town was founded with Gallitzin’s land and named after an Italian city called Loreto.

“People have come for centuries there to pray to get close to God, to be refreshed,” said the Very Rev. John David Byrnes, rector of the Basilica of St. Michael the Archangel. “This was his desire for this little town.”

“We became known as the town of Loretto in 1804,” Mr. Seymour said.

“He built up this community,” Betty Seymour said. “He built everything for them, -- saw mills, gristmills, tanneries and eventually the church and the rectory.”

Gallitzin was rector of the church of St. Michael the Archangel, built in 1799.

He named the church, in part, to honor the settlement's founder, Michael McGuire.

The fourth reconstruction of the church, built in 1901, now stands where the original chapel was built.

In 1996, it was named a minor basilica.

“The pope named St. Michael’s Church the Basilica of Saint Michael because of the witness and the heroic virtue of father Demetrius Gallitzin,” Byrnes said.

Basilicas have a special relationship to the pope.

St. Michael’s features a papal chair that's prepared for the pope if he visits.

Frank Seymour said the church would not have become a basilica without Gallitzin’s legacy. The Seymour family is championing Gallitzin’s canonization, believing he is worthy of becoming a saint.

“The man or the woman up for sainthood must be proved to have heroic virtue (and) to have been venerated all of their lives, especially after they died,” Betty Seymour said. “We found volumes of information, his letters, and the letters to the bishop and back and from other people show that they loved this man and they followed him beautifully.”

“We want to keep this alive and we hope that we’re going to see him moved to the venerable step very soon,” Frank Seymour said.

In order for Gallitzin to become a saint, Byrnes said God must intervene in a miraculous way in someone's life while they are praying for Gallitzin to intercede.

Byrnes said a lot of work has been done in the last 25 years and all of Gallitzin’s papers have been reviewed. They are awaiting a decision from the Vatican for the next stage of the process.

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