Sister Yelizaveta Alexeyevna Golitsyna (also Elizabeth Gallitzin) (born on 22 February 1797,

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

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- died on 26 November 1844,

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, United States) was a

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

noble and

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nun, who converted from

Russian Orthodoxy Russian Orthodoxy (russian: Русское православие) is the body of several churches within the larger communion of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, whose liturgy is or was traditionally conducted in Church Slavonic language. Most C ...

Biography

Yelizaveta Golitsyna was born 22 February 1797 in Saint Petersburg, Russia to the family of Prince Alexei Andreevich Golitsyn and Princess Alexandra Golitsyna. She was baptized and brought up in the

Russian Orthodox Church , native_name_lang = ru , image = Moscow July 2011-7a.jpg , imagewidth = , alt = , caption = Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, Russia , abbreviation = ROC , type ...

.Stuart, Janet. "Elizabeth Galitzin." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 6. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909. 12 Aug. 2014
/ref> When she was 15, she learned that her mother and her aunt converted to

Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

(the aunt, a revert to the faith, was the mother of future Catholic priest Demetrius Gallitzin). Outraged by this "betrayal," Golitsyna vowed never to change her religion, but over the next four years, her rejection of Catholicism was replaced by interest and desire to know more. Eventually, Yelizaveta also joined the Catholic Church. During one of her trips abroad, Golitsyna met Jesuit Father Rozaven, whom she asked to find for her a religious order devoted to education. Father Rozaven suggested the recently founded community, the "Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus", created by

Madeleine Sophie Barat Madeleine Sophie Barat, RSCJ, (12 December 1779 – 25 May 1865), was a French saint of the Catholic Church who founded the Society of the Sacred Heart, a worldwide religious institute of educators. Early life and family Barat was born on the ...

in order to spread education among Catholic women. Golitsyna took the veil in the city of

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in 1826, and made her first vows in

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in 1828. Her final vows were taken in Paris in 1832. Mother Barat highly valued the assistance of Golitsyna. After the General Council in 1839, Golitsyna was appointed Assistant General and sent to visit the American houses. She arrived in New York and promised Bishop Hughes that the Society of the Sacred Heart would open a house in New York. In May 1841, the first Religious arrived. A school was opened at the corner of

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and Mulberry streets, in Manhattan, then in Astoria, and finally at Manhattanville. During her stay in New York, Mother Gallitzin was a guest of the Parmentier family, noted New York philanthropists, at their Bridge Street mansion in Brooklyn. In 1842 Mme. Gallitzin founded establishments in the Pottawattamie missions, and at McSherrystown, Maryland.Ripley, George and Dana, Charles A., "Ladies Of The Sacred Heart", ''The American Cyclopaedia'', D. Appleton and Company, 1873
/ref> Mother Elizabeth died of yellow fever, at the age of 47, on 26 November 1844 in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Notes

External links

Elizabeth Gallitzin's family tree on Rodovid (in Russian)
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gallitzin, Elizabeth Converts to Roman Catholicism from Eastern Orthodoxy Former Russian Orthodox Christians Russian Roman Catholics 1797 births 1844 deaths Yelizaveta Russian princesses