Born July 24 to Rusyn immigrant parents in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, Dolinay’s father was a Greek Catholic priest.
He earned his undergraduate degree at St. Procopius College in Lisle, Illinois in 1945 and completed his theological studies at the Benedictine Seminary in 1948.
Its center was Van Nuys, California, a suburb of Los Angeles, and its cathedral would be at St. Mary's Church, the first Byzantine Catholic parish formed in the western United States.
At the same time Metropolitan Archbishop Stephen Kocisko installed Dolinay as the first Bishop at a ceremony in St. Cyril of Jerusalem Roman Catholic Church in Encino, California.
Kocisko submitted his resignation and entered into retirement on May 16, 1991,[1] automatically making Dolinay the second Metropolitan of the Byzantine Catholic Metropolia.