150 years of diaconia
Mühlviertel “mission” for the needy
150 years ago, the Diakoniewerk, a Protestant aid organization that is now active throughout Austria, was born in Gallneukirchen.
Around 1870, poverty and misery were not only omnipresent around the then Mühlviertel market town and today's city of Gallneukirchen. In many places, unattended elderly and disabled people were helplessly left to fend for themselves and, like neglected and neglected children, usually led a miserable life.
Thanks to Pastor Ludwig Schwarz and his wife
This began to change in 1871 when the Protestant pastor Ludwig Schwarz and his wife Cäcilia moved from Görz in present-day Italy to Gallneukirchen and, in the face of misery, cared for the sick and needy in their parish apartment.
On New Year's Eve 1872/73, Ludwig Schwarz and his brother Ernst, also a Protestant pastor, decided with a few friends, including Countess Elvine de La Tour, to found an "Evangelical Association for Inner Mission", which was approved by the imperial governor's office in Linz on 3 January 1873 - this was the birth of the Diakoniewerk.
Unmarried women in the service of charity
The first activities were the establishment of an orphanage and rescue home in Weikersdorf in the municipality of Alberndorf and the recruitment of sisters to provide care and nursing.
Unmarried women were sought who were willing to lead a celibate life as deaconesses in the service of charity for the many people who needed help.
Elise Lehner from Gumpolding and Elisabeth Obermeir from Thening are considered to have been deaconesses from the very beginning. After three years of training in nursing and caring for people with disabilities and children in Stuttgart, they were "blessed" in Gallneukirchen in 1877, as the deaconesses are known.
A motherhouse that has brought much joy since 1909
In 1909, the deaconesses in Gallneukirchen opened their current "motherhouse", which bears the biblical name "Bethanien", where the sisters set up a military hospital during the First World War.
The influx of young women was large until after 1945 and peaked at 250.
However, the last sisters entered in 1963, including the last superior Helga Sikora, who is now 87 years old. For many years now, the Diakoniewerk has been entirely in secular hands.
Max Stöger
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