St. Joseph Sisters
The Sisters of St. Joseph are a congregation in the Catholic Church that operates primarily in France .
history
In 1650 the Jesuit Jean Pierre Médaille founded the Sisters of St. Joseph in Le Puy-en-Velay in France. The religious community devoted itself to helping those in need in the period after the Thirty Years' War and quickly spread throughout France. During the French Revolution , the congregation was banned. Five sisters who did not voluntarily leave the religious houses were executed. In 1808 the community was re-established by Mother St. Jean Fontbonne, who had survived the revolutionary era.
The religious community expanded worldwide in the 19th century and was divided into 49 regional congregations. The community has a total of around 20,000 members, the Congregation of the St. Joseph Sisters of Chambéry being the largest with around 2,000 sisters. The latter has branches in Norway and Denmark , among others .