Neuss Augustinian women

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The Augustinian Sisters of Neuss , actually Sisters of Mercy according to the Rule of St. Augustine , are a Catholic congregation that is primarily active in nursing. The short form of the name is derived from their parent company , which is located in the Rhenish city of Neuss . The founder of the Neuss community was sister Johanna Etienne .

history

19th century

On January 27, 1844, two cellists from Düsseldorf settled in Neusser Brückstrasse to take over the local hospital. One of the Cellites was Sister Johanna Etienne . The re-establishment took place at the request of the Neuss citizens. On August 7, 1844, she resigned from the Düsseldorf monastery, received the approval of the royal government on December 18 of that year and that of the Archbishop of Cologne, Johannes von Geissel, on January 25 . After the final recognition of the urban conditions in 1846, Sr. Johanna broke ties with the Düsseldorf monastery and her co-sister Franziska returned there.

Since she was only allowed to accept the first three postulants in 1848 , she only had the option of accepting aspirants. But then the community grew; In 1849 they were already nine sisters. After the city council had approved the statutes of the young community on May 24, 1851, they were approved by the archbishop on June 21 of the same year and confirmed by cabinet order on June 21, 1852. A new congregation of episcopal law, in which the first sisters made profession on Mary's Candlemas in 1853 , was founded.

The sisters bought their own house and bought the so-called “Gütchen” for 8,000 thalers on April 24, 1858, where they built the Joseph Monastery, which was the parent house of the cooperative until 1923. After the superior Sr. Maria Benrath of the Viersen branch monastery of the Düsseldorf Cellitinnen had already contacted mother Johanna Etienne in 1857, she joined forces with the Neusser Congregatio in 1860 with the approval of the Archbishop and built the first daughter house. After the General Superior had already moved to the Josefskloster in 1861, numerous other new foundations followed from 1863, most of them in the Neuss area, but some also in Belgium and the Netherlands. In 1866 the young congregation numbered 32 sisters and continued to grow. On September 10, 1868 alone, the Archbishop of Cologne, Cardinal Johannes von Geissel , dressed eight postulants and accepted the profession of 14 novices .

After strict state surveillance of the community was carried out in 1875 as a result of the Kulturkampf and the transfer of sisters was forbidden, it was probably an act of protest by the city administration against the government in Berlin that on the occasion of the golden jubilee of Mother Johanna Etienne's profession, she made the citizens special Called for donation for the poor and needy. Mother Johanna did not survive her special day for long and died on March 28, 1881. Led by the clerical and secular authorities, she was buried in the city cemetery.

20th century

Immaculata Monastery

In the following years the sorority grew to 259 sisters in the diocese of Cologne by 1901. If the sisters had made their temporary vows for three years up to this point in time, the Archbishop of Cologne, Antonius Cardinal Fischer , allowed them to make temporary vows five times for one year each on request. After the sisters exchanged the founding hospital on Brückstrasse for the new hospital on Preußenstrasse in 1911, the Immaculata Monastery was set up in the former Villa Leuchtenberg in 1923 and became the motherhouse of the congregation on July 15, 1927.

Aggregated into the Augustinian community in 1928, the novitiate moved to the new motherhouse in 1929. For the time being, dressings and the taking of vows continued to take place in the chapel of the Josefskloster, as the still provisional chapel of the mother house was hardly suitable for such occasions. In 1933 the cooperative had 530 sisters and 75 novices in 57 branches, of which only 17 were owned by the congregation. The chapel of the mother house was completed by 1935, and was consecrated on May 11th by Auxiliary Bishop Wilhelm Stockums . The costumes and vows were celebrated in the mother house from now on. After the city administration had reduced the fee for the sisters in the city's houses to 20 Reichsmarks a month and also canceled the free tickets for the tram, they resigned them on March 31, 1938 in the city hospital, which they could use until the following day, April 1 had to leave. Two years later, the sisters were informed that 30% of all members of the cooperative had to be made available to the Wehrmacht .

The first bombing raids on May 13, 1940 brought many patients to the hospital. The mother house had already been occupied with patients at the beginning of the year, and in the Alexian Monastery in Neuss the sisters had to look after an infection department with 127 beds and a department for internal medicine with 60 beds since 1942. However, since there were no more new entrants, the number of sisters fell to 720, which resulted in staff shortages. After the National Socialist government initiated a review of the Congregation's cash books as part of the foreign exchange processes in 1941, it levied a tax refund in 1944, which brought the community to the brink of ruin.

present

After the war, extensive constructions began, but should the cooperative, like everyone else, never return to their former glory and the number of sisters fall to 1966 to 556 in Germany alone, one that because of the ongoing talent shortage also numerous convents cancel had to. Nevertheless, the Augustinian nuns from Neuss founded a mission in Burundi in the 1960s, but it was given up again. 2001 counted the cooperative, whose cartridge the hll. Augustine , Joseph and Elisabeth are 112 sisters in nine branches. In 2004 the Augustinians from Neuss founded the Cor Unum Foundation - Preservation of Heritage .

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Coordinates: 51 ° 11 ′ 27.6 "  N , 6 ° 42 ′ 15.5"  E