Stephen Varzaly

Stephen Varzaly (1890 – 1957) was a leading priest, journalist, and cultural activist for Rusyns in the United States.

Varzaly was born October 6, 1890 in the village of Fulianka, Austria-Hungary (now Slovakia) and studied at the Greek Catholic Seminary in Prešov. Varzaly married Anna Ilona Kristof. The couple had 7 children. Eugene Varzaly, Stephen Varzaly, Jr.; George Varzaly; Adela Varzaly Matiak; Dolores Varzaly Amman; Martha Varzaly Gaydos; Maria Louisa Varzaly Lazor. He was ordained November 7, 1915 and served in several Rusyn parishes during World War I.

In 1920 Varzaly was offered his choice of assignment to the cathedral in Budapest or of a church in New Castle, Pennsylvania. In 1920 he emigrated to the United States on assignment to St. Nicholas Greek Catholic Church in New Castle, Pennsylvania. In 1921 his wife and three children (Eugene, Stephen and Adela who were born in Fulianka) followed. He moved in 1932 to the parish of Saint Michael's Greek Catholic Church in Rankin, Pennsylvania.

Greek Rite Catholicism in the United States, which began in the 1880s with large-scale emigration from Eastern Europe, was until 1914 administered by the American Roman Catholic hierarchy, which instituted a subtle campaign to Latinize its conduct.

Fearing that married Greek Catholic priests might cause envy among celibate Roman Catholic priests, Pope Pius X in 1907 issued an apostolic letter enjoining celibacy upon all Catholic priests in the U.S. Many Greek Catholics argued that by the 1646 Union of Uzhhorod their clergy had been granted the right to marry before ordination, and the decree was unenforced.

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