Pennsylvania is the historic capital of Ukrainians in America. About 268,311 Ukrainians
came to the U.S between 1899 and 1930, and almost half of them came to
Pennsylvania. Most moved to western Pennsylvania and worked in the coal mines and
steel mills there. By 1920, western Pennsylvania had 20 Ukrainian churches.
St. John the Baptist Ukrainian Catholic Church on the South Side Pittsburgh was
founded in 1891 and is the rootstock of Ukrainian churches in western Pennsylvania. In
general, western Pennsylvania Ukrainians were either Greek Catholics or Orthodox.
There are 36 active Ukrainian churches in the area today. Ukrainian churches are easily
identified as most have gold, onion-shaped domes reflecting the Ukrainian Baroque
architectural style of the 17th and 18th centuries.
While western Pennsylvania is a Ukrainian heartland, Philadelphia is the Ukrainian
capital in America. The first Ukrainians to settle in Philadelphia in the 1880s came from
Transcarpathia and lived in the poetically named neighborhood of Point Breeze. In 1891
they built their first church. Soon a second church was built on Buttonwood Street,
which catered to Ukrainians from Halychyna.
In 1886, Immaculate Conception parish was founded, becoming a cathedral in 1907. In
1966 the new Ukrainian Greek Catholic cathedral opened.
In 1924, Ioan Teodorovych, metropolitan of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, came to the
United States at the request of Orthodox Ukrainians in North America and settled in
Philadelphia. He established the St. Volodymyr Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral on North
Fifth Street.

Ukrainians in Philadelphia in 1917 rehearsing a play.