Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

On March 26, 2003 the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that "Our Lady of Victory Church's 100th anniversary is the perfect time for its members to reflect on the close ties between culture and church. 'The church is the sign of the unity of our people. It's what keeps us together,' said Joseph Anthony, 66, a longtime member of the first Lebanese Maronite Catholic church in Pittsburgh... Anthony, like many American-born Lebanese, was baptized in the Maronite church in the Hill, where his parents immigrated, but attended school at Epiphany Roman Catholic Church a block away... St. Ann Catholic Church... 'loaned' its chapel to the first Maronite priest commissioned to serve the city's flourishing Lebanese population... By 1940, those who had worshipped in the Maronite faith since 1902 were still without a church house to call their own... It wasn't until more than 150 men and women from the congregation were called to serve in World War II that Monsignor Elias Basil, made a promise... 'If all our people returned from the war, Father Basil made a pledge to build a new church,' said the Rev. James Root, the church's current priest... Almost 10 years later, his promise was fulfilled when the first church building was constructed on Dunster Avenue in Brookline in 1952 and took the appropriate Our Lady of Victory Church."