Austrian Nuns Defy Authority to Reclaim Their Convent Home

Sat Sep 13 2025 23:09:13 GMT+0300 (Eastern European Summer Time)

Three elderly nuns escape a care home to return to their convent in the Austrian Alps, asserting their right to live in their long-time residence despite opposition from church authorities.

Sister Bernadette, Sister Regina, and Sister Rita, three octogenarian nuns, have returned to their former convent in Elsbethen after being relocated to a care home against their will. The nuns, aided by supporters, are now re-establishing their lives there, despite concerns from church officials about the living conditions.

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 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.

The nuns’ work has garnered them a dedicated following, with many former students advocating for their return.

Sophie Tauscher, a former student, emphasized the importance of the nuns at Goldenstein, stating, Goldenstein without the nuns is just not possible.

The nuns are now slowly re-establishing their lives at the convent, despite initial issues with electricity and water. Supporters have been supplying food and groceries, while medical care has been arranged.

Despite church disapproval, the nuns are determined to remain, with Sister Bernadette expressing her wishes saying, Before I die in that old people's home, I would rather go to a meadow and enter eternity that way.