Three elderly Austrian nuns angered authorities in September after escaping from their retirement home and running away to their former care home in the Alps, BBC News reported.
Sister Bernadette, 88, Sister Regina, 86, and Sister Rita, 82, were the last three nuns at the Kloster Goldenstein convent in Elsbethen before the convent closed its doors in December 2023. The nuns complained that they had not been asked and were removed from the building against their will.
"We weren't asked," Sister Bernadette said. "We had the right to stay here until the end of our lives and that was broken."
The building was taken over by the Archdiocese of Salzburg and the Reichersberg Abbey in 2022, and the nuns had been promised a home there as long as they were mentally and physically able. However, in December 2023, officials decided to transfer them to a Catholic care home.
The nuns were able to return recently, thanks to the help of former students and a locksmith. The nuns found themselves back in their convent, but without electricity and running water - though many of the nuns’ supporters have dropped off supplies for them.
"I am so pleased to be home," Sister Rita told BBC News. "I was always homesick at the care home. I am so happy and thankful to be back."
The convent has a long history as both a home for women committing their lives to Christ and as a faith school. The institute began admitting girls for education in 1877 and began accepting male students in 2017.
Austrian film actress Romy Schneider is one of the many former students to have walked the halls of the private school.
Defending the nuns' removal
In a statement, Provost Grasl said the nuns' return to the convent was "completely incomprehensible" and "an escalation."
"The rooms in the convent are no longer usable and in no way meet the requirements for proper care," he said, while claiming the nuns had "precarious health conditions" which meant "that independent living at Goldenstein Convent was no longer possible."