Father Edmund M. Idranyi

Meet the Reverend Father Edmund M. Idranyi

The Reverend Father Edmund M. Idranyi was born March 11, 1928 in Brooklyn, NY. His father Michael was a member of the Byzantine Catholic church while his mother Mary was a Roman Catholic. As customs dictated Fr. Edmund received the sacraments in the church of his father -- the Byzantine Catholic Church. Providentially the influence of both the Byzantine and Roman Rites were allowed to provide Fr. Edmund with very wide exposure to the great breadth of the Church. Growing up in Fairfield Connecticut he attended both rites of the Church and attended Catholic schools graduating from Cardinal Bellarmine Preparatory School-Fairfield College Preparatory School, a Jesuit institution in 1946.

Following high school Father Edmund gravitated towards the Latin Rite and attended the Franciscan Minor Seminary of St. Joseph Seraphic Seminary in Callicoon, New York. He progressed onward and later entered the Franciscan Novitiate in Paterson, NJ. He earned a Bachelor of Sacred Theology degree from Catholic University in Washington DC and a graduate degree from St.Bonaventure University in Olean, NY. Fr. Edmund was ordained to the Holy Priesthood by Apostolic delegate Most Reverend Ameleto Cicognani on May 5, 1954 at the Holy Land Shrine in Washington, DC.

After ordination, Father served several Roman Rite parishes. In 1963 he began celebrating the Byzantine Divine Liturgies throughout the Pittsburgh area and was a featured writer for the Byzantine Catholic World newspaper. He arrived in California in 1966, serving at Annunciation Parish in Anaheim, California. He later served as Secretary to Bishop Thomas Dolinay of the Eparchy of Van Nuys, was the editor of the Eparchial Newsletter and along with Bishop Dolinay appeared on EWTN as an expert of the Eastern Churches. Father Edmund was the founding force behind St. Anne Church. He became its first pastor in 1986 and has shepherded Saint Anne's faithful for more than twenty years.