Defiant nuns flee Austrian care home for their abandoned convent in the Alps

Defiant nuns flee care home for their abandoned convent in the Alps

1 day ago Share Save Bethany Bell Austria correspondent in Salzburg Share Save

BBC Sister Rita (L), Sister Regina (C) and Sister Bernadette were sent to a care home against their will in 2023

Three Austrian nuns in their 80s have run away from the retirement home where they were placed and gone back to their former convent. Sister Bernadette, 88, Sister Regina, 86, and Sister Rita, 82, are the last three nuns at the Kloster Goldenstein convent in Elsbethen, just outside Salzburg. They regained access with the help of former students and a locksmith. Church authorities are not happy - but the nuns are. "I am so pleased to be home," Sister Rita said. "I was always homesick at the care home. I am so happy and thankful to be back." The trio say they were taken out of the convent against their will in December 2023. "We weren't asked," Sister Bernadette said. "We had the right to stay here until the end of our lives and that was broken."

When the nuns returned to Schloss Goldenstein, the convent had no water or power, but the school was still functioning

The three nuns have spent much of their lives at Schloss Goldenstein, a castle which has been a convent and a private girls' school since 1877. The school, which started accepting boys in 2017, is still functioning. Sister Bernadette attended the school herself, arriving as a teenager in 1948. One of her fellow students was the Austrian film actress Romy Schneider. Sister Regina arrived at the convent in 1958, and Sister Rita four years later. All three went on to work at the school as teachers for many years. Sister Regina was headmistress. But the numbers of nuns dwindled. In 2022, the building was taken over by the Archdiocese of Salzburg and the Reichersberg Abbey, an Augustinian monastery. Provost Markus Grasl from the abbey became the nuns' superior. The community was officially dissolved at the beginning of 2024, and the remaining nuns were granted lifelong right of residence, as long as their health and mental capacity allowed.

@nonnen_goldenstein Sister Bernardette is far happier back at the convent serving plum dumplings to Sister Rita

In December 2023, the decision was made to transfer them to a Catholic care home, where they were unhappy. At the beginning of September, Sister Bernadette, Sister Rita and Sister Regina moved back, helped by a group of former students. "I have been obedient all my life, but it was too much," Sister Bernadette said. They packed up a few belongings and came back to the convent. The locks to their former apartments had been changed so a locksmith was called.

When they first arrived, there was no electricity or water. In a statement, Provost Grasl said the nuns' decision to return to the convent was "completely incomprehensible" and "an escalation". "The rooms in the convent are no longer usable and in no way meet the requirements for proper care," he said. He said the nuns' "precarious health conditions" meant "that independent living at Goldenstein Convent was no longer possible". Grasl said the old people's home had provided them with "absolutely essential, professional, and good medical care". Many of the nuns' wishes about the future of the convent had been taken into account, he added, including the continuation of the school.

Provost Markus Grasl says the rooms at the convent are no longer usable and the nuns' decision to return is incomprehensible