Order history
At the beginning ...
of our order's history is a letter from Father Gerhard Dall, of the St. Georg Parish in Thuine, which he wrote to the Superior of the Sisters of the Holy Cross in Strasbourg on March 31, 1857. In it, he asked for sisters to take care of the inhabitants of his village of Thuine, who often suffered from typhoid fever.
Mother M. Anselma Bopp Pastor Gerhard Dall
On May 25, 1857, Sister M. Anselma, aged 22, and the slightly older Sister Marianne arrived in Thuine.
12 years later - in 1869 - her then Superior General in Strasbourg asked Sister M. Anselma to return to Strasbourg immediately. This brought Sister M. Anselma into a serious conflict of conscience. Faced with the poverty and misery of the sick and orphans she had taken in at St. George's Abbey, built in 1860 with funds from Father Dall, Sister M. Anselma felt that she could not abandon these people in Thuine alone. On the other hand, she felt bound by the instructions of her Superior General. After a hard struggle in prayer, Mother M. Anselma and her co-sisters decided to separate from Strasbourg and found a new community.
Thus, on November 25, 1869, as the first four sisters took vows according to the Rule of the Third Order of St. Francis, this small daughter house became the Thuine Congregation, officially the "Sisters of St. Francis of the Martyr St. George", with Mother M. Anselma Bopp as the first Superior General.
