The Slavic communities in the United States owe much to the priests who came to serve in the churches which they established in all the Slavic centers. Some of them had come with the authorization of their superiors in the Old World. Others simply followed the outflow from their villages and arrived in America with little more knowledge of conditions than their flocks. Their lack of familiarity with the legal conditions governing church property in the United States involved them in many difficulties. Even the immigrant Roman Catholic priests serving the Poles and Slovaks could not, at first, easily fit themselves into the framework of their Church in the United States and through misunderstandings they often got into controversies with the Roman Catholic hierarchy here, consisting mainly of Irish and Germans, and all too often they were tempted to declare their complete independence and make needless issues over extra-ritual customs and parish organization. The situation was even worse for the Catholic priests of the Eastern Rite (the Uniats) who ministered to the Ukrainians from Galicia and the Carpathians. These people insisted at first upon a married clergy and since they often came without proper credentials, they were looked at askance by the hierarchy who had no experience or personal knowledge of this Rite. In addition, many of the priests from the Carpathians had been under strong Hungarian influence at home and found it difficult to serve their flocks adequately in the New World. The Russian Orthodox were somewhat better off, especially after the seat of the Archbishopric was moved to New York. But, there again, many parishes indulged in almost continuous appeals to the civil authority against the administration of the church. However, by the end of World War I, most misunderstandings had been eliminated on all sides and the way was open for smooth and steady development. Yet it was the priests who became the first community leaders to guide the immigrants to a new and better life in which they retained as much as possible of their old traditions. They and the more experienced lay leaders played a great role in the organization of the Slavs into fraternal societies, which had risen in the United States even before the Revolution and since then had grown steadily and found a place both in American life and American law. On the payment of small sums they provided protection to their members, payments in case of death or inability to work and, in some cases other assistance.