Thus the only Slavs not included either in the Ottoman and Hapsburg empires or in Poland were the Muscovite Russians. At this period few of them thought of crossing the boundaries of their western neighbors. Those who left their original homes traveled eastward and by the middle of the seventeenth century had reached the Pacific ocean and were poised to cross the north Pacific at its narrowest point. We must keep these facts in mind when we think of the early Slavic immigration to the United States. This jumble of nationalities and states was still more confused by the fact that the overwhelming majority of the educated Slavic population used one of the three international languages of the day. The Roman Catholics used Latin, the Orthodox employed either Church Slavic or Greek, and these “higher” tongues supplemented and in large part replaced the vernaculars in legal and historical records. This was a period of religious turmoil as well, beginning with the Hussite wars in Bohemia. These were continued by the Protestant Reformation touched off by Martin Luther and the Counter-Reformation under the leadership of the Jesuits. At the same time, the new Protestantism and the older Latin Rite were spreading among the Orthodox Slavs and the situation was still further complicated by the Union of Brest in 1594 which formed the so-called Uniat Church or Catholic Church of the Eastern Rite. Each of these religious disputes, with the political consequences that they involved, added to the number of displaced persons. The adherents of every religion found shelter with their friends in any of the countries of Western Europe—England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Holland. These were added to the number willing to risk anything to secure a new home. This was the background of the early colonization efforts in America. The Spanish settlements in the southwest are less easily discussed. There can be no doubt that the leaders of the great religious orders that spread through California and New Mexico were of Spanish birth but there is considerable evidence to show that some of their subordinates were probably of Slavic origin. At least they seemed familiar with the peculiarities of Orthodox iconography. The Spanish mission in Santa Barbara, California, displays the Eastern form crucifix. Many of the wood paintings of saints in New Mexico superficially resemble crude icons. Yet little has been done to trace the early lives of the monks who worked in these missions. It would certainly not be surprising to find that some had made their way to the Spanish centers of the Franciscans and Dominicans from the disturbed area of Eastern Europe.[2]