Gallitzin, Demetrius Augustine

Gallitzin, Demetrius Augustine, 1770–1840, American frontier missionary; son of Dmitri Alekseyevich Gallitzin. The young prince followed his mother in joining the Roman Catholic Church and determined to devote himself to church work in the United States. He was trained in the seminary at Baltimore, was ordained in 1795, and began itinerant missionary work among the frontiersmen and Native Americans of SW Pennsylvania, where he was known as Father Smith. At much expense to himself he founded (1799) the Catholic colony of Loretto near Gallitzin, Pa., which is named for him. There he lived out his life, refusing to return to claim his patrimony in Russia and declining ecclesiastical preferment.