In 1907, a young Basilian priest in Ukraine was appointed by the Holy See to serve as Bishop for all Catholics of the Byzantine Rite in the United States of America. Headquartered in Philadelphia, he would be ministering to a flock of Ukrainian immigrants that had left their homeland to pursue better lives in the new world.
In Philadelphia, Bishop Ortynsky found churches in sad need of repair and reorganization and a flock of illiterate and desperately poor parishioners, including scores of orphans. Knowing that the tasks before him were too great to tackle alone, the bishop prayed for guidance, help, and solutions. God provided the guidance, and Ukraine’s Metropolitan Andrew Sheptytsky arranged for the transfer of a group of Basilian nuns from the Yavoriv monastery in Ukraine to America. On November 28, 1911, four Sisters of St. Basil the Great, led by Mother Helena Langevych, OSBM, arrived in America.
Times were lean, and the immigrant community was poor, and Bishop Soter and Mother Helena spent countless hours soliciting funds and helping the other sisters cope with the hardships and deprivation. They set up a carpet weaving business and a printing press, and the sisters tended to the needs of the orphans while learning to operate the unfamiliar machinery. There were days when only the indomitable spirit of Mother Helena held everything together. But while she was ministering to the spiritual and physical needs of her sisters and the orphans, she was neglecting her own physical health and contracted tuberculosis. She died on May 17, 1916, leaving the small community of immigrants, orphans, and sisters bereft and rudderless.
In the early 1920s, under the direction of the newly appointed Metropolitan, Constantine Bohachevsky, and Superior, Mother Josaphat, the sisters embarked on a mission that was to culminate in a Ukrainian Catholic Parochial School System. New postulants entered the community, many from the immigrant families that the sisters from Ukraine had come to serve. In 1926, recognizing that the community needed room to grow, Mother Josaphat bought a piece of property in Fox Chase—130 acres of land and a farm cottage, which was to serve the sisters as a motherhouse. In 1930, the sisters laid the cornerstone for the new Motherhouse in Fox Chase and began to build upon traditions begun centuries ago, focusing on teaching and ministering to the spiritual needs of the community beyond the convent walls.
St. Basil Academy, a convent boarding school for girls of Ukrainian ancestry, opened its doors in 1931. The Academy is now a college preparatory school which provides an excellent learning environment and diversified curriculum for more than 350 students and is accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools and the Pennsylvania Department of Education.
Manor College was founded in 1947, with the first classes held in the old farm house on the Fox Chase property. The college, which opened with a student body of eleven young women, was chartered and incorporated into the higher education system of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1959. In time, Manor expanded its facilities to include dormitories and a library. In 1977, an on-campus Ukrainian Heritage Studies Center with the goal of fostering an awareness of Ukrainian heritage and culture was established. Today, Manor has an enrollment of 800 students with access to an extensive and varied curriculum.
Community life in the Province, so tenuous at the turn of the previous century, has also matured and flourished. The sisters continue to teach and have espoused other ministries, other missions, and other goals. The sisters are active members of an international community of Basilian nuns and maintain strong ties with the Basilian Generalate in Rome and with Basilian sisters in Eastern Europe, in countries where religion and religious communities have experienced a strong spiritual rebirth since the fall of communism.
In 1991, Ukraine became an independent nation. After decades of active repression, personal and institutional spirituality began to experience a renaissance. The revitalization of religious practice and religious instruction was hampered by the scarcity of trained and qualified priests and nuns, by poverty, and by isolation from the global religious community. In 1994, the Provincial administration initiated a Ukraine Outreach Program that would reconnect the sisters of the province with their ancestral homeland and would assist the sisters of the homeland to fulfill their mission in God’s service.
In March 2000, another longstanding dream was fulfilled with the consecration of the Holy Trinity Chapel and Basilian Spirituality Center. The Sisters sponsor and host many programs and special events at the Spirituality Center – all of which are designed to provide intellectual, psychological and spiritual enhancement. Over 1,500 participants attend these programs as well as programs designed for spiritual growth in the Eastern Christian Spirituality at the Center.
Today, the Basilian Sisters are a testament to the human spirit and the embodiment of Eastern Christian Spirituality. Carrying on and building upon the legacy of their predecessors, they continue to be guided and inspired by a love of community, heritage, learning, prayer, and service. In their last Provincial Chapter the Sisters embarked upon a “Pilgrims Journey to Transfiguration: A Legacy of Hope” committing themselves to be true to their Eastern traditions, to reverence the sacredness for all creation and to take seriously their relationship to God, self and others by experiencing personal transformation.