Elżbietanki w dekanacie wałeckim w latach 1868-1920

Abstract

After the dissolution of religious orders in the part of Poland annexed to Prussia, which happened in the first half of the 19th century, only women’s convents taking care of the poor were not liquidated. The changing social-political situation in that century also influenced the religious and Church life. Numerous new initiatives appeared that were supposed to form new religious orders. One of the new cloistered families was the Order of the Sisters of St Elizabeth (Nysa 1842). In the Wałcz deaconate, after the dissolution of the Jesuit college at the end of the 18th century, the monastic life did not exist. The energetic parish priest of the Tuczno parish, Rev. Juliusz Alkiewicz, put forward the initiative of bringing nuns to the Wałcz region. The direct cause of the “gray sisters” coming to Tuczno proved to be the epidemic of typhus that broke out in that region in 1867. After completing the Church and legal formalities the nuns undertook taking care of the orphans and organizing a private school for girls. The legislature of the “Kulturkampf” reduced the possibilities of influencing the local society, both Catholic and Evangelic, by the order. After the May Laws were subdued the nuns never returned to the work at school; they took care of out-patients and ran a kindergarten. At the same time the Wałcz parish priest. Rev. Wurst, seeing the Tuczno nuns’ devoted work, wrote a letter to the General Mother Superior, in which he asked to send some nuns to Wałcz. The solemn introduction of the Sisters of St Elizabeth took place on 16 June 1887 The nuns were soon appreciated not only by Catholics but by Protestants and Jews, too. Not only did they serve the sick inhabitants of Wałcz, but also reached such places as Skrzatusz and Nakielno. They took care of the sick, they raised funds as well as collected food for the poor; and they also run a kindergarten. The nuns’ work conceived on a wide scale, induced the local people to work in charity organizations. After the outbreak of World War I the “gray sisters” nursed the wounded and contused soldiers. The ending of the war made it possible for the nuns to continue the work they had been doing earlier in the Wałcz deaconate.