Joseph Raffaele was the founder of the American Orthodox Catholic Church - Western Rite Mission, Diocese of New York. He was initially a layman in the Roman Catholic Church. On August 28, 1973, he founded St. Gregory's Church in Sayville, New York. Three months later, he was ordained to the priesthood by , of the Archdiocese of the American Orthodox Catholic Church in the U.S. and Canada, later known as the . Raffaele's congregation drew a number of Catholic traditionalists who felt separated from the post-Vatican II Roman Catholic Church.