Courage, determination and faith led Mother Josephine (Barbara Timofieff) Finatowicz from Russia to the United States to begin what is known today as the Sisters of the Holy Spirit of Pittsburgh. Mother Josephine founded a community of sisters who worked in Italy, Russia, Dalmatia, and Poland taking care of the sick, the elderly, the poor, orphans and abandoned.
Seeking financial assistance with the dream of establishing a new foundation, Mother Josephine sent Sister Anthony Kolasa and Novice Aloysius Przybylak (later known as Sister Alphonsa Przybylak) to the United States. While waiting for acceptance into a diocese these two women assumed supervision of the domestic department of the Saints Cyril & Methodius Seminary in Orchard Lake.
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In 1911, Bishop Regis Canevin gave the sisters permission to build a motherhouse in Donora, PA, near Pittsburgh. Shortly after, Bishop Canevin directed that ties with the foundation in Europe be severed and presented a new constitution to the congregation on April 25, 1913. Bishop Canevin asked two School Sisters of Notre Dame from Milwaukee, WI – Sisters Ladislaus Janta and Allowine Nadeau – to lead the growing congregation.
When our foundress, Mother Josephine, came to the United States, she discovered that she had no place and no community to call her own. She later founded a congregation, The Sisters of the Holy Spirit, in Cleveland, Ohio and led that community until her death in 1936.
With the Pittsburgh community’s first Chapter of Elections in 1918, the leadership of the School Sisters of Notre Dame ended. A little later, the Sisters of the Holy Spirit of Pittsburgh moved to West View, PA where the present-day motherhouse was built.
Today, our Sisters own and operate Martina Spiritual Renewal Center, work at Marian Manor Home for the elderly, work in the field of education, and in parishes as pastoral assitants.
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