Poor Sisters of St. Francis

Logo of the order

The Sisters of the Poor of St. Francis ( SPSF ) are a Catholic religious order that was founded on October 3, 1845 by Franziska Schervier in Aachen . That is why the name “Schervier Sisters” or “Aachen Franciscan Sisters” has become established.

history

Franziska Schervier

As the daughter of a manufacturer, Schervier recognized the problems of socially marginalized groups in an up-and-coming industrial society very early on and decided to start a monastic and socially beneficial life together with four like-minded young women . For this purpose, they set up a house at Jakobstor in 1845 and initially looked after prostitutes . After King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia allowed the establishment of an institute for the care of girls at risk in Aachen in the revolutionary year of 1848 , the still young monastic community moved to a new, larger home. After a cholera epidemic broke out in Aachen on July 5, 1849 , Franziska Schervier offered the Mayor of Aachen, Johann Contzen , to take care of the cholera sufferers together with her fellow sisters and at the same time leave the girls entrusted to her to the monastery of the Good Shepherd founded the year before . After around 170 days, the epidemic was contained and the Schervier sisters took on other tasks, such as looking for accommodation for working-class families, organizing regular school lessons for factory workers' children and providing soup kitchens for the needy. In addition, they cared for sick fellow citizens and organized an early form of home nursing.

On July 2, 1851, the community of sisters was raised by Cardinal Geissel from Cologne to a monastic community approved by the episcopal ordinariate under the name of the "Poor Sisters of St. Francis ". On August 12, 1851, Franziska Schervier and her now twenty-three religious sisters were ceremonially dressed in the Aachen St. Pauls Church, Franziska's baptismal church. On August 6, 1852, the new order acquired the building complex of the Aachen Clarisse Monastery, which was secularized at the beginning of the 19th century, on the corner of Kleinmarschierstrasse and Elisabethstrasse in Aachen, which has since been the seat of the Generalate .

A few years later, in 1864, the Sisters of the Poor were asked to do hospital service in the German-Danish War and again in the German-Austrian War of 1866. They also looked after around 20 military hospitals and helped thousands of wounded during the Franco-German War of 1870/1871.

The consolidation of the community as an ecclesiastical congregation resulted in inquiries about further foundations in various regions. Initially, two houses were built in Cologne for outpatient nursing and catering for poor sick people. In 1853 the poor sisters took over the care of the Marienhospital opened in Burtscheid near Aachen . A year later a foundation followed in Ratingen (St. Marien Hospital, until 1969) near Düsseldorf. Further branches were established in Bielefeld ( Franziskus Hospital , since 1869), Eschweiler ( St. Antonius Hospital , from 1850 to 1990), Frechen-Königsdorf (St. Elisabeth senior center, since 1919), Jülich , Mainz (St. Bilhildis Monastery, since 1854), Koblenz (Eltzerhof, from 1854 to 1992), Kaiserswerth , Köln-Ehrenfeld (St. Franziskus Hospital, since 1887) and Stolberg ( Bethlehem Health Center , from 1863 to 2006). In 1858 the first convention was founded in Cincinnati ( Ohio , USA ). At the same time, Franziska Schervier and her order supported the teacher Johannes Philipp Höver in his plan to establish the Order of the Brothers of the Poor of St. Francis also founded in Aachen.

Order in the 21st century

Motherhouse in Aachen

The main fields of activity of the nuns today are working with the elderly and in hospitals as well as in open social work, as well as looking after the marginalized groups of society. In addition to the Generalate in Aachen, in whose monastery church the crypt of Franziska Schervier is located, the sisters work in the branches at Aachener Lindenplatz and in Lourdesheim in Burtscheid as well as in Bielefeld, Düren-Arnoldsweiler, Frankfurt am Main, Frechen-Köngisdorf, Cologne- Ehrenfeld, Krefeld, Mainz, Mechernich-Kommern and in the Belgian towns of Chaudfontaine-Embourg, Chênée and Raeren.

In addition, the Catholic Order of the Sisters of the Poor of St. Franziskus sole shareholder of "Franziska-Schervier Altenhilfe gGmbH " in Aachen, which operates nationwide facilities for full inpatient care according to SGB XI, assisted living, senior citizens' homes, specialist schools for elderly care and a nursing school.

As early as 1959, the American provinces of the order became independent as the congregation of the "Franciscan Sisters of the Poor" and today have their order headquarters in New York City , USA , from where the sisters in the United States, Brazil, Italy, Senegal and on the Philippines live and work.

The grave field of the Aachen poor sisters is located on the Aachen Ostfriedhof , which is the largest of its kind in the cemetery and where more than 1000 members of the order found their final resting place.