Monastery must close

The last missionaries are now packing their bags

The mission house in Absam will soon be empty. On the right, a picture from days gone by with regional superior Andreas Agreiter (seated left) and Bishop Hermann Glettler (standing right).(Bild: Johanna Birbaumer)

More and more monasteries are closing their doors. The last residents of the mission house in Absam in Tyrol (Innsbruck-Land district) must now also say goodbye. This is not easy, as it is more than a century of history that is now coming to an end.

It is quiet in the large house, the corridors are empty, many rooms are no longer heated. It's hard to imagine that 60 pupils, priests and nuns used to come and go here at weddings. That was a long time ago. Today, only seven missionaries live here, as the members of the religious order "St. Joseph's Missionaries of Mill Hill" are called.

On January 20, the seven men close the door behind them for good and leave their home of many years.