Franciscan Sisters of the Holy Family

The Franciscan Sisters of the Holy Family ( order abbreviation : OSF ) are a religious order under papal law in the Roman Catholic Church . They are a congregation of the Third Order within the Franciscan family (see Sacra propediem ) and were founded in Eupen ( Belgium ) in 1857 by Josephine Koch ( sister Elisabeth von Jesu) . In 2007 the congregation was awarded honorary citizenship of the city of Eupen.

history

Mother house in Eupen

The order was founded on June 13, 1857, followed by the first cladding. The motherhouse was set up in the Eupener Haus Vercken and later, as a result of the Kulturkampf , moved to Leuven in 1875 . This motherhouse was dissolved by the Belgian state in 1921 and the foundation stone was laid on July 1, 1922 for a new motherhouse, the Helgoland monastery in Mayen ( Germany ). On March 12, 1929, the religious community received from Pope Pius XI. the papal approbation to the congregation of papal law. In 1933 the Franciscan Sisters set up their generalate in Eupen and set up the German Order Province with its seat in Mayen.

organization

For the 150th anniversary in 2007 the religious order consisted of approx. 200 religious sisters who are mainly active in the care of the sick and the elderly as well as in pastoral care. They maintain monasteries and institutions in Germany ( Aachen , Cologne and Hennef (Sieg) ), in the Netherlands ( Dongen ) and in Belgium (Eupen). The Helgoland monastery in Mayen was given up in 2010. For over 50 years the sisters have had a branch in the Republic of the Congo (Dungo), which is run by local Franciscan Sisters.

literature

Alfred Minke: Inventory of the archive of the Franciscan Sisters of the Holy Family (1703-2011). General State Archives , Brussels 2015, ISBN 978-90-5746-761-5 ( PDF ; 3.3 MB).