Father Ivan Voliansky (Wolanski) was the first Greek Catholic priest who came to serve the faithful in America in 1884. His wife, Pavlyna (née Hankevych), accompanied him on his missions.
Father Ivan received his education at the seminary in Vienna. He knew several languages (including Old Chaldean, Syriac, and Arabic) and also English, French, German, Portuguese, and Slavic languages. Before leaving for America, he was a parish priest in his native village Yabluniv (Ternopil region).
Shenandoah was Fr. Ivan's first place of service. Ruthenian faithful from there wrote a letter to Metropolitan Sylvester Sembratovych of Lviv with a request for a priest because “something is lacking in us. Lacking to us is God, Whom we could adore in our own way.”
Father Ivan was not only a parish priest, he also:
- established the first mutual aid brotherhood of St. Nicholas on January 18, 1885, in Shenandoah PA;
- built the first Eastern Catholic church in Shenandoah, PA, in 1886;
- created Ukrainian reading houses Chytalni and schools;
- organized the first choir;
- created trade cooperatives;
- founded and edited the first Ruthenian newspaper America (the first issue was published on August 15, 1886);
- founded the first St. Michael's cemetery for Greek Catholics in Shenandoah, PA;
- sympathized with and was a member of the American trade union Knights of Labor, which fought for the rights of workers in the mining region.
Father Ivan and his wife were forced to leave America in June 1889 because the American Latin bishops protested against married Eastern Catholic clergy on their territory, and Metropolitan Sembratovych recalled him home. Later, Father Ivan and his wife, Pavlyna, were missionaries in Brazil.