Image source, Bethany Bell/BBC
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- author, Bethany Bell
- Author title, BBC News
Three Austrian nuns who escaped from the nursing home where they were accepted will be able to remain in their former convent “until further notice”, just as they wanted.
However, the Catholic authorities stipulated that they should stop publishing posts on social networks, where their case gained great fame.
Sisters Bernadette, 88, Regina, 86, and Rita, 82, are the last nuns at the Kloster Goldenstein Monastery in Elsbethen, near the Austrian city of Salzburg.
In a statement published on their behalf, the nuns stated that they were willing in principle to reach an agreement, but their legitimate demands and needs must be taken seriously.
They indicated that they were not completely satisfied with the church’s offer, noting that it bore the “nature of a contract of silence.”
The three nuns indicated that they were taken from the monastery against their will in December 2023.
In September, they moved there with the help of former students and a locksmith, much to the chagrin of church officials.
The nuns’ head, Abbot of Reichersberg, Markus Grassl, then asked them to return to the nursing home, stating that their decision to return to the monastery was “completely incomprehensible.”
Image source, @nonnen_goldenstein
Social media stars
The nuns’ story sparked worldwide interest. Their followers helped them with food, electricity and on social media, posting videos of the nuns’ daily lives.
The clips show the nuns praying or eating lunch, and include Sister Rita’s physical exercises. He recently acquired a pair of boxing gloves.
The Goldenstein Sisters’ profile has already exceeded 100,000 followers on Instagram and several thousand on Facebook.
Now, nearly three months after the standoff, local rectory spokesman Harald Scheffel told Austrian news agency APA that the nuns have permission to stay for now.
This comes after a meeting held earlier this week, in which a solution to the conflict was proposed.
Harald Scheffel told APA that nuns could stay in Kloster Goldenstein, but only under certain conditions. These include abandoning your social media activities.
Church officials also want the nuns to ensure that the closed part of the monastery is no longer accessible to people who do not belong to the order.
In return, they will be allowed to stay and will be provided with medical care and spiritual support by the priest.
“Now it is up to the sisters,” Harald Schiffel told APA.
According to the statement published on behalf of the nuns on Friday, the three sisters will not have the possibility to seek legal advice in the future.
The demand that videos of their activities not be published on social networks “has no legal basis and would deprive the sisters of their only remaining protection from the relevant public.”
A whole life is there
The three nuns spent most of their lives at Schloss Goldenstein Castle, which has served as a convent and private school for girls since 1877. The school, which began accepting boys in 2017, is still in operation.
Sister Bernadette has been a student there since 1948, when she was a teenager. One of his colleagues was Austrian actress Romy Schneider, one of the biggest movie stars in the world in the 1960s and 1970s.
Sister Regina arrived at the convent in 1958 and Sister Rita in 1962.
The three nuns worked at the school as teachers for many years. Sister Regina was the director.
But the number of nuns was decreasing. In 2022, the building passed into the hands of the Diocese of Salzburg and the Reicherberg Abbey, an Augustinian Catholic monastery.
Rector Markus Grassl of Reichersberg Abbey became head of the nuns and the community was officially dissolved in early 2024.
The remaining nuns were granted lifelong residency as long as their health and mental capacity permitted. In December 2023, the decision was made to move them to a Catholic care home, where they were unhappy.
In early September, Sisters Bernadette, Rita and Regina returned with the help of a group of former students. At the time, they told the BBC they were determined to stay.
“Before I die in that nursing home, I would rather go to the meadow and enter eternity that way,” Sister Bernadette said.
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