Sister Maria Nadia Barusewycz, Former Manor College Teacher and Psychiatrist

Sister Maria Nadia Barusewycz, MD, OSBM, died July 27, at Holy Redeemer Hospital. She was 89.

Born Maria Iryna Daria, in Lviv, Ukraine, she was the daughter of Theophil and Olena Jarymowycz Barusewycz, Maria grew up in war-torn Europe, receiving her medical degree at the University of Innsbruck in Austria. After World War II, Maria and her family emigrated to the United States, settling in the parish of St. George in New York City.

In 1954, feeling drawn by a more spiritual calling, Maria entered the Order of The Sisters of St. Basil the Great, a community previously known to her in her native Ukraine, and took the name Sister Nadia.  Her days as a novice at the Motherhouse in Fox Chase were spent in prayer and service to the ill of the community.  After pronouncing her final vows in the Order in 1960, Sister Maria Nadia pursued a degree in psychiatry and specialized in the practice of adolescent and child psychiatry at the Mental Health Center in Philadelphia and at Albert Einstein Hospital in Philadelphia.  Sister also served as a psychiatric consultant with the Philadelphia Public School System and with the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.  Her participation in the Resident Training Program in Spiritual Direction at the Jesuit Center for Spiritual Growth in Wernersville, Pa. also aided Sister Maria Nadia in her work with patients and with children during her administration as Superior of St. Basil Home where she was successful in creating a more familial environment for the young residents.

In addition to her medical practice, Sister Maria Nadia at one time taught at Manor College and served on the Province’s governing council from 1985-1989, and then on the Basilian Order’s General Administrative Council in Rome from 1990 -1996.  After the fall of Communism in Ukraine, Sister Maria Nadia, as Superior, assisted the Basilian Sisters of the formerly suppressed Holy Trinity Province in Lviv, in re-establishing themselves as a viable, spiritual and service-oriented religious community. 

Sister Maria Nadia Barusewycz was a member of the Philadelphia Branch of the Ukrainian Medical Association and of the Montgomery County Medical Society by whom she was honored in 1999 for 50 years of service in the field of medicine.

Sister Maria Nadia is survived by her sister-in-law, Yaroslawa Barr; her niece, Iwanna Kaczor (Bohdan); grand niece, Sofia Kaczor; grand nephew Ivan Kaczor; and great niece Camille Bobiak. She was preceded in death by her brothers Dr. Iwan Barr and Dr. Mykola Barusewycz.

A viewing with Panahyda was held July 31 at Holy Trinity Chapel in the Basilian Sisters’ Motherhouse.  At the funeral Liturgy Aug. 1 — concelebrated by Motherhouse Chaplain Very Rev. Daniel Troyan and the Rev. Edward J. Higgins, Pastor of Holy Ghost Byzantine Catholic Church, Philadelphia, and Administrator of Holy Trinity Church, Philadelphia, and Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church, Levittown — Sister Nadia was remembered for her deep love of God and her ability, as encouraged by St. Basil the Great, to successfully blend the spiritual and active aspects of her vowed life. 

“We have been blessed by your presence in our lives,” Sister Dorothy Ann Busowski, OSBM, Provincial Superior, said, “[and] as you share in the divine brightness may you now reap the harvest of the spiritual fruits you so generously shared with others.”

Interment was in the Sisters’ cemetery. 

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Information courtesy of Sisters of the Order of Saint Basil the Great