St. Joseph’s Byzantine Rite Catholic Church was completed in 1933 to serve part of Cleveland’s Carpatho-Rusyn population. The Rusyns are an Eastern Slavic ethnic group originally inhabiting the Carpathian Mountain region; primarily near the borders of modern day Hungary, Ukraine, Slovakia, and a small part of Poland.
As the story goes, in the 9th century, Saints Cyril and Methodius brought Christianity to the Slavic peoples. Most of the Rusyns, sometimes called Ruthenians, practiced Orthodox Christianity until the 17th century when they became part of the Catholic Church. In the late 1800s, many Rusyns came to Cleveland, establishing several Byzantine Catholic churches in the area.
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