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

Three Austrian nuns in their 80s have run away from the old people’s 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.”

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 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.

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.

The three nuns are settling back in to their former home.

Electricity and water connections have now been partially restored, supporters are bringing food and groceries, and they have been seen by doctors.

There is a steady stream of visitors, many of whom are their former students.

One of them, Sophie Tauscher, said the nuns belong at the convent. “Goldenstein without the nuns is just not possible.”

“When they need us, they just have to call us and we will be there, for sure. The nuns here changed so many lives in such a good way.”

Alisha, another student said the nuns always recognised old pupils.

Videos of the nuns have been posted on Instagram, at prayer, at Mass, at lunch and climbing down the steep staircase.

They say their old stairlift was ripped out after they were taken away.

The nuns say they are determined to stay.

“Before I die in that old people’s home, I would rather go to a meadow and enter eternity that way,” said Sister Bernadette.