The Different Sisters

Amid well-raked gravel walks and faultlessly kept gardens in the suburbs of Darmstadt (pop. 125,000) stands one of the most unusual convents in Germany. No casual visitor to the Sisterhood of St. Mary would notice what makes it different; like most Roman Catholic nuns, its 58 sisters wear wedding rings symbolizing their spiritual marriage to Christ, use religious names, make confession regularly, and practice a special devotion to the Virgin Mary. What makes them unusual is that they are Protestants.

The convent was founded shortly after the war by two Bible teachers, Dr. Klara Schlink, daughter of an engineering professor, and Erika Maddaus, daughter of a merchant. Even after Hitler had banned Bible classes, the two teachers went on instructing a group of girls in a Darmstadt attic. In the night of Sept. n, 1944, an Allied saturation raid blasted the city. Wrote Dr. Schlink (now Mother Basilea): "It was a different language from human preaching. It was as awesome and unmistakable as God speaking in judgment. It went through bone and marrow. It was the hour of renaissance. The girls no longer needed to be reminded of Bible classes. They came on their bicycles through continual strafing attacks, both on Sundays and weekdays, to pray and sing together."

Prayers & Sculpture. The Sisterhood of St. Mary was formally organized in 1947 in Darmstadt, with nine members and a capital of 30 marks. "Stoves, beds and chairs had to be prayed for and mustered through faith," says Mother Basilea. Two solid weeks of prayer finally brought the housing authority around to granting them a room. Then they set about praying for furniture. "A broom was sent to us for which we had prayed for a week. A note was tied to it: 'The Lord insisted that I send you this. Did you really need it?' "

By 1950 there were 35 in the community, with a duplicating machine and a sculpture studio set up in a barracks. The sisters set out to build a chapel, put it up in two years from excavation to roof on nothing but their own nun-power. Now a 50-room guest house is almost completed, and on the drawing board is a new 1,000-seat chapel plus auditorium.

Business & Vigils. With Mother Basilea in charge of the spiritual direction and Mother Martyria (Erika Maddaus) keeping the administration running efficiently, the sisters perform a repertory of a dozen religious plays, do social work in the slums, manufacture statuary, also maintain a stiff schedule of devotions. They keep silence all day except during "business hours" between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m., hold many prayer vigils. At 6 p.m. each Friday, for instance, they gather in penance for the wrongs committed by the Germans against the Jews. "It cries, it cries without relief, the blood on our hands . . . no man can ever tell how mountain-high this burden," the sisters pray in unison.

Though the convent is nondenominational, most of the sisters are Lutheran. They make pledges rather than formal vows, look to Martin Luther's writings for an endorsement of their kind of monastic life.* The Evangelical Church is interested, but still unconvinced. Said Berlin's "Radio Pastor.'' Wolf-Dieter Zimmermann. in a recent broadcast: "Some Protestant convents were born of modern religious persecution. Now that the primary stimulus has been removed, it remains to be seen whether these institutions can find a new reason for remaining in being. The question is whether enough spiritual grounding remains to justify the continuation of the experiment."

* Martin Luther, at one time an Augustinian monk, advocated the suppression of nunneries, decried the practice of taking vows which could be rescinded only by papal dispensation, insisted that those desiring, a monastic life should be free to leave at will.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.