America
As was the custom among young aristocrats at the time, he then set out to complete his education by travel. As the French Revolution had made European tours unsafe, it was determined by his parents to send him to the newly founded United States. On October 28, 1792, he arrived in Baltimore, Maryland, bearing a letter of recommendation to Bishop John Carroll and several other prominent figures. To the shock and horror of his father, Prince Dimitri decided to enter the priesthood and voluntarily offered to forego his inheritance. The Ambassador subsequently got Catherine the Great to award his son a commission in one of the Palace Guards Regiments, and formally summoned him to active duty in St. Petersburg.
Father Demetrius Gallitzin was ordained in March 1795, becoming one of the first Catholic priests ordained in America. Gallitzin then was sent to work in a church mission at Port Tobacco, Maryland, whence he was soon transferred to the Conewago district where he served at Conewago Chapel until 1799. There, Gallitzin's impulsive objection to some of Bishop John Carroll's instructions was sharply rebuked, and he was recalled to Baltimore. But in 1796 he removed to Taneytown, Maryland, and in both Maryland and Pennsylvania worked with such misdirected zeal and aristocratic manners that he was again reproved by his bishop in 1798.
Read more about this topic: Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin
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