Three nuns in their 80s who have an IG account escaped their nursing home to return to convent

These nuns were on the run.

A trio of Austrian octogenarian nuns — who have their own Instagram account with over 78,000 followers — ran away from their nursing home to get back to their convent.

Sister Rita, 82, Sister Regina, 86, and Sister Bernadette, 88, were transferred to the home in December 2023 against their will when church officials closed the convent, named Schloss Goldenstein, due to the decrease in vocations to the sisterhood.

“We weren’t asked,” Sister Bernadette told the BBC.

“We had the right to stay here until the end of our lives and that was broken … I have been obedient all my life, but it was too much.”

A former student and a local locksmith helped the sisters escape, unbeknownst to their supervisor, Provost Markus Grasl of Reichersberg Abbey, who isn’t happy with their act of rebellion.

“I wanted to speak to the prelate to tell him how unhappy we were but we couldn’t reach him,” Sister Rita told NPR. “When the opportunity arose to return to our beloved convent, we didn’t wait for his permission. But I don’t want him to be angry with us.”

Grasl said the women’s “precarious health conditions” meant “that independent living at Goldenstein Convent was no longer possible.”

Grasl, who hired a public relations firm to deal with the media frenzy, spoke to NPR through his rep, Harald Schiffl.

“It goes without saying that the sisters were consulted before being moved into the nursing home,” Schiffl told the outlet. “And it’s understandable that after decades of living and working in one place, such a move is not easy.”

Schiffl went on to explain that the sisters were the last three remaining nuns in the cloister, so it wasn’t in their best interest to stay there alone as they got older. He also said the fact that the nuns were on social media wasn’t a great look.

However, the women were advised to make their plight public, so that Grasl wouldn’t turn them away.

Sister Bernadette, for one, loves the online support and believes it brings their followers closer to God.

“I think it’s wonderful that Instagram brings people to us to praise God. Sure, they’re curious to see us after all the press coverage, but what they see is our worship,” she told NPR.

“So heaven uses tech to spread the word? God arranged this, not us!”

When the sisters returned to the convent, a former castle just outside Salzburg — which also operates as a private school, where the women all taught — there was no electricity or running water and their apartments’ locks had been changed.

Now, good Samaritans, many of them their former students, are bringing the nuns food and groceries.

One former student, Sophie Tauscher, told the BBC, “When they need us, they just have to call us and we will be there, for sure. The nuns here changed so many lives in such a good way.”