Soeurs Noires Augustines de Bruxelles

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The Soeurs Noires Augustines de Bruxelles are a historical religious order of the Roman Catholic Church in Belgium . The sisters who make up one branch of the Zwartsteers have had a long history that ended in the 20th century .

history

Even if the exact founding date of the monastery is not known, it can be assumed that it came into being in the middle of the 14th century . It is not certain whether the cell sample community known between 1348 and 1350 is the monastery we dealt with, but it was first mentioned in a document on July 15, 1360.

After the community had accepted the rule of St. Augustine between 1459 and 1465 , we can find the monastery under the name Huis van Africa as early as 1465 . According to Grootaers , this name is a reference to Saint Augustine , who came from North Africa .

Since the second half of the 15th century under the supervision of the Carmelites , the monastery began to expand increasingly through the purchase of neighboring houses. But the staff of the monastery, which had 25 sisters in 1525, grew to 34 or 35 sisters in 1629. When the city was bombed by the French besiegers in 1695, the monastery buildings were destroyed, so that they were rebuilt came, which, however, was also replaced by a new building between 1779 and 1782.

If the monastery had been quiet in recent years, they had to leave their monastery on January 27, 1798 in the wake of the French Revolution .

After they were assigned the former Bogaardenklooster in 1802 , they received a gift of 5,000 francs from Napoléon Bonaparte the following year. Wearing their religious dress again since 1803 , the sisters received state recognition in 1820, which, however, granted them a maximum of 32 sisters. A request by the superior from 1824 to increase the number of members to 50 was rejected, but then granted in 1827.

Two years later she moved into the former Visitandinnenkloster from where the monastery laid out it in 1878 on the Blaesstraat. They were able to partially finance the local new building through a lottery created for this purpose .

Since they also performed their service for the city's honoraria, they came into contact with many well-to-do people. This gave the community the inheritance of Westerlo Castle in 1944 , where they set up a retirement home for priests in 1946 . But in the following years the Congregation of Episcopal Law became smaller and smaller, so that in 1970 it still had 22 sisters.

In 1976 the branch monastery at Westerlo was sold and the proceeds were divided between the diocese and the congregation. In the same year, however, the parent house was converted into a retirement home and a new wing of the building was built on the Sint-Ghislenusstraat in 1978 as an enclosure . When the community no longer occupied the office of general superior in 1990 , it still had four old and four “younger” sisters. In January 1998 the two older sisters moved to the Sint-Monica nursing home, while the two younger sisters moved into an apartment.