Croatian Immigrants in America: Father Nikola Fabijanić (1913-1980) of New York

In his 1971 book The Croatian Immigrants in America, historian George J. Prpić (1920-2010) underscored that the immigration of Croats after 1945 brought many more intellectuals and professionals to America’s shores than any previous wave of immigration. One member of this wave of immigration was Nikola (Nicholas) Fabijanić.

Rev. Fabijanić, or Father Nick as he was known to his parishioners, was a Roman Catholic priest who served in various parishes of the Archdiocese of New York after arriving to the United States from Italy in 1948.

Fabijanić was born to Ivka (née Antončić) and Petar Fabijanić on 1 June 1913 in Omišalj, Island of Krk, Croatia. Krk was an important center of Croatian Glagolitic culture from which the famous 12th century Baška Tablet (Bašćanska ploča) originated. The text on this stone monument described King Zvonimir’s gift of some land and buildings to the church and it symbolizes the beginnings of Croatian literature.

It was on Krk that Fabijanić attended elementary school in Omišalj and then continued his schooling in Slavonska Požega and finally Visoko, Bosnia-Herzegovina. He graduated from the Visoko gymnasium in 1933 and from 1933 to 1937 he studied at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. He was ordained on 29 June 1937 in the Diocese of Krk by Bishop Josip Srebrnić. Fabijanić’s travels and education exposed him to various cultural milieus and besides his mother tongue Croatian, he was fluent in Italian, English, Slovenian, and Latin, and could also communicate in French.

Following his ordination, Fabijanić’s youthful energy led him to minister successfully to the youth of Krk. Only a few years after beginning his first pastoral assignment, Fabijanić’s personal nightmare began when Fascist Italy annexed large parts of coastal Croatia, including his native region, during World War II.

Italian civilian and military authorities engaged in a policy of forced Italianization. Croatian place and personal names were removed and replaced with Italian ones. This Italian policy escalated to ethnic cleansing and internment operations targeting Croats and Slovenes, and like thousands of others, Fabijanić was rounded up and imprisoned from 1941 to 1943. In 1943 he was transferred to a prison run by the German Nazis.

Through the assistance of an Italian guard, Fabijanić managed to escape and then evade his Nazi jailors by fleeing to the mountains of northern Italy. After several months in hiding he was freed following the Allied invasion. He remained in Italy and was engaged there in parish work from 1945 to 1948, after which he immigrated to the United States becoming a citizen in 1955.

Fabijanić began serving as Associate Pastor at St. Martin Tours Church in The Bronx in July 1948. He went on to serve in the same role at various parishes, including: St. James Church (Manhattan), Our Lady of Loretto Church (Manhattan), St. Brendan Church (The Bronx), Holy Trinity Church (Poughkeepsie), and St. Patrick’s Church (Newburgh). On 27 July 1964 Fabijanić was incardinated into the Archdiocese of New York, thus ceasing to be a priest of the Diocese of Krk. He was appointed Pastor of St. Anthony’s Church in Pine Plains in 1969.

In a 1967 piece in The Catholic News, Fabijanić was described as a “modest and unassuming” priest with an “indomitable” spirit who “refused to be downed, even by the rigors of concentration camp life.”

Although faithfully serving his flock in parishes of the Archdiocese of New York, Fabijanić could not forget his parishioners back home. He was instrumental in organizing fundraising drives and sending several tons of humanitarian aid (clothing, food, medicine) to the people of Krk and their diocese to help rebuild their lives and community in the aftermath of World War II.

He also engaged his fellow expatriates from Krk in New York City by encouraging and helping them to stage theater performances, concerts and other social events to raise funds for humanitarian assistance to Krk. These social events also brought these recently uprooted people together and helped them to adjust to their new home America. To this end he also launched his annual almanac Krčki kalendar in 1952. He edited and published four volumes of this publication in New York from 1952 to 1955. This publication was dedicated to the culture, history, faith, and people of the Island of Krk. It also presented the importance of the region to Croatia’s cultural heritage as a whole.