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Sisters of Saint Elizabeth
Elizabeth, Sisters of Saint,
generally styled "Grey Nuns". They sprang from an
association of young ladies established by Dorothea Klara Wolff,
in connection with the sisters, Mathilde and Maria Merkert, and
Franziska Werner, 1842, in Neisse (Prussia), to tend in their own
homes, without compensation, helpless sick persons who could not
or would not be received into the hospitals. The members purposed
to support the needy through the labor of their own hands. Without
adopting any definite rule, they led a community life and wore a
common dress, a brown woollen habit with a grey bonnet. For this
reason they were soon called by the people the "Grey Nuns".
As their work was soon recognized and praised everywhere, and as
new members continually applied for admission, their spiritual
advisers sought to give the association some sort of religious
organization. They endeavored, wherever possible, to affiliate it
with already established confraternities having similar purposes.
But their foremost desire was to educate the members for the care
of the sick in hospitals. Great difficulties arose, and the
attempt failed, principally through the resistance of the
foundresses, who did not wish to abandon their original plan of
itinerant nursing. Thus the association which had justified such
bright hopes was dissolved, and many of the newly admitted members
joined the Sisters of St. Charles Borromeo, while the foundresses
left the novitiate which they had already entered. Klara Wolff and
Mathilde Merkert died shortly after, in the service of charity.
The other two began their work anew in 1850 and placed it under
the especial patronage of St. Elizabeth. They speedily gained the
sympathy of the sick of all classes and creeds, and also that of
the physicians. New candidates applied for admission, and the
sisters were soon able to extend the sphere of their activity
beyond Neisse. Of especial importance was the foundation made at
Breslau, where the work of the sisters came under the direct
observation of the episcopal authorities. Soon after, September 4,
1859, Prince-Bishop Heinrich Förster was prevailed upon by
the favorable reports and testimonials to grant the association
ecclesiastical approbation. As such a recognition presupposed a
solid religious organization, novitiate was established according
to the statutes submitted. In the following year the twenty-four
eldest sisters made the three religious vows. State recognition,
with the grant of a corporation charter, was obtained by the
confraternity May 25,1864, under the title, "Catholic
Charitable Institute of St. Elizabeth", through the mediation
of the Prussian Crown-Prince Frederick William, subsequent Emperor
of Germany, who had observed the beneficent activity of the
sisters on the battlefields of Denmark. The approbation of the
Holy See was granted for the congregation on January 26, 1887, and
for its constitutions on April 26, 1898. The congregation has
spread to Norway, Sweden, and Italy, and has (1908), dependent on
the motherhouse at Breslau, 305 filial houses, with 2565 sisters
and about 100 postulants
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