[citation needed] Consecrated as a bishop in Rome, Italy on Pentecost Sunday, June 15, 1924, he set sail two months later aboard the liner Mauretania for the United States.
He led a service of thanksgiving at St. Mary's Greek Catholic Church in New York and followed by a welcoming banquet at the Hotel Pennsylvania.
Representatives of St. John the Baptist Greek Catholic Church in Munhall, Pennsylvania, a steel town suburb of Pittsburgh, presented to him a formal proposal offering land and financial assistance—if he would establish his residence and episcopal seat at the parish.
St. John the Baptist had been constructed in 1903 and designed by the Hungarian-born architect, Titus de Bobula, who patterned it after the Rusyn Greek Catholic Cathedral of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in Uzhhorod.
Greek Rite Catholicism in the United States, which began in the 1880s with large-scale emigration from Eastern Europe, was administered by the American Roman Catholic hierarchy, which by the early 20th century instituted a subtle campaign to Latinize its conduct.
[citation needed] The Holy See issued a decree in 1929 entitled Cum Data Fuerit, which reiterated Rome's previous position that the Greek Catholic clergy in America must be celibate.
During the 1930s some priests and laity started an open campaign against him and attacked his authority to govern, and many parishes were drawn into the conflict and numerous legal battles for control of church properties ensued.