In July 1935, 37 parishes who were in opposition to latinization attempts by the Roman Catholic Church petitioned that a Church Congress be called to decide the future of Carpatho-Russian Churches in the United States. The first Diocesan Council-Sobor was called in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on November 23, 1937 by Father Orestes P. Chornock who was appointed administrator of the Diocese being formed. The Sobor abrogated the 300-year old "Unia" and returned the Carpatho-Russian people to the ancestral Orthodox Faith. The clergy at this Sobor elected the Rt. Rev. Orestes P. Chornock as the Bishop-Nominee of the new Diocese.

The Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Church prior to the "Unia" was under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Because Carpatho-Russians received Christianity from Saints Cyril and Methodius from Constantinople, and because the Patriarch of Constantinople held canonical jurisdiction over all new churches in the diaspora, the First Diocesan Sobor decided to petition the Ecumenical Patriarchate to accept the Carpatho-Russians into Orthodoxy and canonically establish a new Diocese.The Ecumenical Patriarch accepted the petition and received the Carpatho-Russian Church into Orthodoxy as a self-governing Diocese. On September 19, 1938, the Diocese was canonized by Patriarch Benjamin I, of thrice-blessed memory, in the name of "The Holy Orthodox Church in Christ" under Patriarchal Decree number 1379. This was the first Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Church since the infamous Papal Unia. Father Orestes P. Chornock was consecrated the day prior, September 18, as bishop of the Diocese.