Royal Son and Mother

He was born into the Russian aristocracy, the son of a prince, heir to land, titles, and his father's ambitions. But at seventeen, Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin made a choice that would dismantle everything his family had built for him. After his mother recovered from grave illness, he converted to her Catholic faith, renounced his Orthodox inheritance, and shattered his father's plans for a military career. The ambassador dispatched his son to America for education, expecting discipline and return. Instead, Demetrius entered a seminary, was ordained in 1795, and vanished into the rural wilderness of Maryland and Pennsylvania. For over four decades, he served as 'The Apostle of the Alleghenies,' founding a church in Loretto and tending to pioneers scattered through the mountains, a Russian aristocrat become frontier priest, carrying a foreign faith into the American wilderness. This is the story of one man's radical rupture with his heritage, and the quiet, extraordinary life that followed.