Being brought up as an atheist, the Russian Prince Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin, upon the conversion of his mother, studied religious systems to see if any were worth following. As a result, he concluded that Roman Catholicism held the only route to salvation and so became a Catholic.He sailed to the newly formed United States to study engineering, to find to his amazement that there were very few Catholics. Determined to build up the Church, even though against the wishes of his Orthodox Church relatives, he attended seminary and was ordained in 1795.

He most likely was named after the St. Demetrius who served as the Patriarch of the Church in Alexandria, Egypt, from 188 to 231 A.D., whose feast day is observed on October 9th.Or, he may have been named after the martyred St. Demetrius, who as early legends narrate, was extremely popular as a military officer in the Middle Ages. This St. Demetrius and St. George were the patrons of the crusades.The people of the Altoona/Johnstown diocese hope and pray that some day their Prince Demetrius will be canonized. We are honored to carry his name in the name of our parish and the name of our city.