The history of the Sisters of the Order of St. Basil the Great, an international group of women religious, begins in the fourth century with St. Basil, their patron. St. Basil, the Bishop of Caesarea Cappadocia in Asia Minor, known as the Father of Eastern Monasticism, taught three principles for this life: the Gospel as Rule, Community Life, and Service to the local Church. His sister, St. Macrina, his mother, St. Emellia, and other women including their former servants, lived in a monastery for women across the river from the one Basil began for men. After his death, his way of life spread through Greece and into Europe.
Though monasteries arose and declined through the centuries, record keeping and documentation were either poorly done or non-existent. However, records show that the first Sisters of St. Basil came to America in 1911 from a monastery in Europe. A courageous group of four Sisters arrived in Philadelphia under the head of Mother Helen Langevych. Shortly after, Mother Macrina Melnychuk, who had been the Directress of a famous Girls Institute in Poland followed. Mother Macrina became the first Novice Directress in America, and after Mother Helen’s death, she succeeded her as Superior of the Community.
In January 1921, Mother Macrina responded to the request of the Apostolic Administrator, for Sisters to serve the people of Ruthenian descent in America, and founded Our Lady of Perpetual Help Province in Cleveland, OH. The first convent and novitiate there was a ten-room house. Five young women came in the spring of the same year and the community began to grow. The care of orphan children was the initial apostolic work of the small community.
When the Fraternal Organization, the Greek Catholic Union, built a large orphanage in Elmhurst, PA in 1923, they asked the Sisters to relocate the orphans from Cleveland to staff this new St. Nicholas Orphanage. One wing of the structure served as a residence and novitiate for the fledgling community. With the growth of both orphans and Sisters, these accommodations soon became inadequate. At about this time there were requests for the Sisters to teach in parish schools. In 1925, Sisters went to staff the first school in Wilkes-Barre, PA. From these humble beginnings, the apostolate of education grew to the staffing of thirty-three schools – elementary, secondary and catechetical- at its highpoint in the 1960’s. Many of the Sisters dedicated their lives to education, teaching not only the religious and academic subjects, but also touching untold lives by their witness and their imparting of Christian values in the Byzantine Catholic Church.
Continued growth in ministry and members necessitated another move for the Sisters. This time it was to Factoryville, PA in October of 1927, where the Sisters purchased a 170-acre farm with several frame buildings. The Sisters realized early on that this property was not an ideal site for a permanent motherhouse. Material facilities were lacking, and the spiritual opportunities so needed were even more remote because of distance from Byzantine parishes and clergy. Some neighbors were unfriendly to the Sisters, and others showed open hostility. It was obvious that they had to seek for a more suitable place.
Financially, though, this seemed impossible. It was the era of the Great Depression, and the money that the Sisters had been able painstakingly to save was lost in a bank failure. However, the Providence of Almighty God intervened and in a series of extraordinary happenings, the Sisters acquired the property known today as Mount Saint Macrina in Uniontown, PA as a permanent motherhouse. The down payment was realized by the sale of the Factoryville property, and through the generosity of many charitable people, Oak Hill, the once palatial but now greatly neglected estate of the former millionaire coal baron Josiah Van Kirk Thompson, was bought and was renamed Mount Saint Macrina in 1933.
Bishop Basil Takach formally dedicated the mansion turned motherhouse in September 1934. Thus began the Pilgrimage in honor of Our Lady of Perpetu