Thuin Franciscan Sisters
The Congregation of the Franciscan Sisters of St. Martyr Georg zu Thuine ( order abbreviation FSMG ) is a Catholic religious order founded in 1869 that lives according to the rules of St. Francis . The general motherhouse of the community is in Thuine in the southern Emsland . The sisters wear a black habit and a similar veil. As Franciscans, they can be recognized by the white cingulate with three knots.
The Thuiner Franciscan Sisters are mainly active in education and social affairs. They run schools, boarding schools, hospitals, old people's homes and homes for the disabled. The order, which is active in ten countries, has over 1,300 members.
history
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In 1857 the pastor at the Thuiner St. Georgskirche, Gerhard Dall, asked for sisters from the Congregation of the Holy Cross in Strasbourg to be sent to work in his community. You should be primarily engaged in nursing. In May of the same year, two sisters, including the later founder of the order, Sister Maria Anselma Bopp , began their service in Thuine. In addition to nursing, there was soon concern for orphaned children whose parents had died from typhus , which was still common at the time . Pastor Dall had the St. George's monastery built with a chapel in 1860 and handed it over to the increasingly numerous Sisters of the Cross as a monastery and orphanage. Asked by her superior general in 1869 to return to Strasbourg immediately, Sister Maria Anselma and her colleagues finally decided to stay in Thuine. In this decision the nuns were supported by the Osnabrück bishop Johannes Heinrich Beckmann . On November 25, 1869, the independent congregation of the Thuiner Franciscan Sisters was founded in St. George's Foundation and Maria Anselma Bopp was appointed first general superior by Bishop Beckmann. The sisters of the new congregation adopted the rule of the Third Order of St. Francis. In the first few years the order spread mainly in the Diocese of Osnabrück and had 146 members in eleven branches in 1887, when the founder Maria Anselma Bopp died.
Due to a confrontation between the Prussian state and the Catholic Church, the so-called May Laws were passed in 1875 , according to which all orders or religious-like congregations were banned, apart from those dedicated to nursing the sick. The Franciscan Sisters were prepared by M. Anselma Bopp († 1887) on May 2, 1878 with their religious community, in contrast to the refusal of the Barromä nuns , to take off their costumes for activities that took place outside the monastery and were therefore able to leave the orphanage of St. Johann in Osnabrück with 50 children.
The Thuiner Franciscan Sisters were officially recognized by the Roman Congregation for Religious in 1909 and received papal confirmation of their rules in 1920.
The first branch was founded in the Netherlands as early as 1875, and Thuin Franciscan Sisters settled in Japan and the USA in 1920 and 1923 respectively. In 1932 Dutch sisters went to Indonesia. After the Second World War , a branch was established in Tanzania in 1960 and the first in Brazil in 1972.
In 2004 there was an internal conflict in the Thuine parent company: A large number of the sisters - influenced by a charismatic sect-like movement, the so-called Christ Community - demanded special rights for themselves. This claim was rejected by the administration of the order and the Roman Congregation for Religious. As a result, 70 sisters left the congregation the following year.
organization
The Thuiner Franciscan Sisters are a religious order under papal law. It is presided over by a general superior who the sisters elect every six years. The superior general is supported by the vicar general and five other councilors. Since the 1950s the congregation has consisted of the generalate area in Thuine and several religious provinces. Currently (2010) these are:
- the German province (based in Schwagstorf near Fürstenau )
- the Dutch province
- the Japanese Province
- the American Province (USA) with the Sacred Heart Region in Brazil
- the Indonesian province with Papua New Guinea and East Timor
In addition, the Thuin Franciscan Sisters have had a small branch in Assisi , Italy , since 2007 , the place where St. Francis. There, the sisters can go on vacation and deal with the spirituality of their patron saint. A branch in Delvina , Albania, founded in 2000 by Thuine, is, like the one in Assisi, directly subordinate to the Muttherhaus.
The mother house
As the motherhouse of the congregation, the St. George's Foundation has been expanded and rebuilt by several buildings since the last third of the 19th century. Today there is the monastery with the Christ the King Church, the old St. George's Chapel, the order's administration, the novitiate, the nursing home for the sisters, a guest house, a conference building, the Antonius school with boarding school, a vocational school, a gymnastics and gymnastics school Swimming pool, various farm buildings and workshops, a nursery, a farm and houses for the secular employees.
The Christ the King Church was built as a new monastery church in 1928/29 and consecrated by the then nuncio Eugenio Pacelli .
Institutions in Germany
The German province of the congregation maintains about a dozen schools in north-west Germany. a. in Lingen (Ems) (vocational school and grammar school), Osnabrück (vocational schools), Schwagstorf bei Fürstenau (secondary school and secondary school), Thuine (vocational school, secondary school and secondary school) and Dingelstädt (special school). The Franciscan Sisters run four hospitals in Berlin, Osnabrück, Ostercappeln and Thuine. They maintain a sanatorium on Borkum and the Maria Meeresstern Clinic in Niendorf (Timmendorfer Strand) , a hospice in Bad Pyrmont , old people's homes in Bad Soden am Taunus , Schöneiche , Schwagstorf and Thuine, guest houses for retreats, meetings and encounters in Bad Pyrmont, Heede , Schwagstorf and Thuine.
literature
- Sixtina Eilers: The Congregation of the Franciscan Sisters of the Holy Martyr Georg zu Thuine . Werl 1930.
- Marianne Rosenberger: Sister Anselma Bopp and the becoming of the Congregation of the Franciscan Sisters of Thuine. 1857 - 1869. [Osnabrück] 2008. ISBN 978-3-925164-42-2
- Manfred Willeke: The story of the Franciscan Sisters of St. Martyr Georg zu Thuine and her Pyrmont branch ... for 100 years. 1902-2002. [Private print, ed. v. St. Georg Hospital, Bad Pyrmont, without ISBN]
Web links
- Website of the Thuiner Franciscan Sisters
- American Province website
- Website of the German Provincial Council