The Last Nuns of Goldenstein Castle

In September of last year, two years after being forced by the local Abbey into a care facility in Salzburg, Austria, Sisters Bernadette (88), Regina (86), and Rita (82), with some help, broke out and reclaimed Schloss Goldenstein — the 15th-century castle-cum-convent they have lived in for most of their lives. The castle, located in Elsbethen just outside Salzburg, was given to an order of Augustinian nuns at the end of the 19th century, and the three now world-famous Sisters are the last remaining members of this order. The castle, itself a relic, is home to religious and historic artifacts, and the Sisters are the living memory of their significance.

Their stand at Goldenstein also reflects a wider trend in European cloistered life where aging monastic communities are relocated from their historic homes, if not disbanded entirely – a result of Vatican and ecclesiastical policy. In Austria, for example, the number of nunneries has dropped from 120 in 2010 to 102 in 2024, and the country's nun population has fallen from 4, 200 in 2010 to 2, 417 last year.

Each of these Sisters pledged her life to preserving the teachings and memory of the Augustinian order and the castle that embodies it, defying the church's will in order to fulfill this duty. They treat their bond with one another and with Schloss Goldenstein not as nostalgia but as sacred obligation. Earlier this year, the Vatican granted the Sisters permission to live out the rest of their lives in the castle.