Miriam Teresa Demjanovich, S.C. (March 26, 1901–May 8, 1927) Sr. Miriam Teresa was an American Ruthenian Catholic Sister of Charity, who has been beatified by the Catholic Church. The ceremony for this was the first to take place in the United States. She was born Teresa Demjanovich in Bayonne, New Jersey, on March 26, 1901, the youngest of seven children, of Alexander Demjanovich and Johanna Suchy), Ruthenian immigrants to the United States from what is now eastern Slovakia.

She received Baptism, Confirmation, and her First Holy Communion in the Byzantine Ruthenian rite of her parents. Teresa felt called to the religious life from a very young age. She delayed her entrance to care for her mother who fell ill. Her family encouragedher to pursue a college education, she attended the College of St. Elizabeth graduating with highest honors in 1923. She pursued her desire to enter the discalced Carmel, but was discouraged by superiors because of health concerns. She then considered a teaching order and For the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, she made a novena and, at its conclusion on December 8, she decided she was called to enter the Sisters of Charity of St. Elizabeth.

She never received an official transfer of rite, and therefore remained a Byzantine Rite Catholic while serving as a Religious Sister in a Roman Rite congregation. As a postulant and novice, Demjanovich taught at the Academy of St. Elizabeth in Convent Station during 1925-1926. In June 1926, her spiritual director, Father Benedict Bradley, O.S.B., asked her to write the conferences for the novitiate. She wrote 26 conferences which, after her death, were published in a book, Greater Perfection.

In November 1926, Demjanovich became ill. After a tonsillectomy, she returned to the convent, but was soon diagnosed with myocarditis and acute appendicitis. Doctors did not think she was strong enough for an operation and her condition worsened. Demjanovich's profession of permanent religious vows was made "in articulo mortis" (danger of death) on 2 April 1927. She was operated on for appendicitis on 6 May 1927 and died on 8 May 1927.

Source: @Evangelizo