Dillinger Franciscan Sisters
The Dillingen Franciscan Sisters are a congregation under papal law that was founded in Dillingen on the Danube in 1241 as an association of Christian women following the style of the Beguine movement.
history
The women of the “Great Collection”, as they were called in Dillingen, initially lived according to their own statutes, but around 1303–1307 followed the rule of the regulated Third Order of St. Francis of Assisi . The congregation existed for over 600 years as a single convent in Dillingen on the Danube .
The sisters lived as a contemplative community in strict enclosure since the 16th century , but took over school lessons in Dillingen in 1774 at the request of their sovereign, Prince-Bishop Clemens Wenzeslaus of Augsburg:
- Since there were of course no classrooms of its own, let alone schoolhouses, the monastery gave up two rooms in its guest house for lessons ... With that, the step from the contemplative to the contemplative active order was made .
On February 25, 1803, the Augsburg bishopric was abolished, two years later the Dillinger monastery. After the secularization , the sisters, who were doomed to extinction, were allowed to accept candidates again by King Ludwig I on April 25, 1827 . The building and the church were made available to the religious order, subject to state ownership. Since 1843 , the Dillinger Franciscan Sisters founded numerous branches in southern Germany. Thus, the first stores were in for example Höchstädt an der Donau , Dettelbach , Untereisenheim , Wipfeld , Rimpar , Burgau , Gundelfingen on the Danube and Oettingen launched in all those places the girls' schools were taken over . The general superior (master) Theresia Haselmayr was in charge , among other things in close cooperation with the outstanding soul guide of the nuns, Johann Evangelist Wagner . At the age of 28, Theresia Haselmayr took on the responsibility for the sisters and the monastery:
- When she was elected in 1836, the entire convent had 11 members; when she died there were over 200 women religious who were distributed in 20 branches next to the mother monastery .
The Franciscan Sisters of Sießen , the Franciscans of Bonlanden and the Franciscans of Au am Inn also emerged from the Dillinger Congregation .
Over the years, the Dillingen Franciscan Sisters took on numerous other social, pastoral and missionary tasks in Germany, the USA, Brazil and India. One of the three German provinces is involved in the work of the disabled as part of the Regens-Wagner-Werke . The sisters also work in kindergartens, old people's homes, children's homes, schools, hospitals, in youth work and in catechesis. For example, the Dillinger Franciscan Sisters run a children's home in the Baschenegg district of Ustersbach . In 2001 they handed over the following schools, well-known far beyond the city limits, to the Catholic Schools of the Diocese of Augsburg : St.-Bonaventura-Realschule Dillingen , St.-Bonaventura-Gymnasium and Specialist Academy for Social Pedagogy Dillingen of the Schulwerk of the Diocese of Augsburg .
As of January 1, 2018, the congregation had around 643 members in 78 convents. Of the seven provinces, three are in Germany, two in Brazil and one each in India and the USA. Superior General is M. Roswitha Heinrich, re-elected for six years in 2017.
For the motherhouse building, see also the Franciscan monastery in Dillingen on the Danube and the monastery church of the Assumption of Mary (Dillingen on the Danube) .
documentation
- Monastery pioneers: the self-confident servant. A film by Juri Köster, shown on Bavarian television on March 21, 2007.
literature
- M. Innocentia Mussak / Victor Mezger: History of the women's monastery Ord. St. Franz. (Formerly called the great monastery) in Dillingen on the Danube. Überlingen 1925.
- M. Lioba Schreyer OSF: History of the Dillinger Franciscan Sisters. 2 volumes. Mission print shop Mariannhill, Remlingen 1982.
- Helmut Witetscheck: Studies on ecclesiastical renewal in the diocese of Augsburg in the first half of the 19th century Augsburg undated, pp. 268–274.