 Its political party, founded in 1896, was originally named the Catholic Ruthenian People's Union.During this time, it was supported by Metropolitan Sembratovich, head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, and by the Austrian government, which subsidized the newspaper "Ruslan".In 1911 the Catholic Ruthenian People's Union, under the leadership of Oleksander Barvinky, renamed itself as the Christian Social Party and sent representatives to the Austrian Parliament in Vienna as well as to the local Galician Diet.