A trio of Austrian nuns have defied the church in Salzburg to return to their former convent home.
Sister Bernadette, 88, Sister Regina, 86, and Sister Rita, 82 insist they were wrongly placed in a nursing home in December 2023.
Now, the three have broken into their former rooms at the Kloster Goldenstein convent in Elsbethen. As the locks had been changed, they regained entry with the help of a locksmith, and former students from the convent school.
Sister Rita told the BBC: “I am so pleased to be home.
"I was always homesick at the care home. I am so happy and thankful to be back."
“We weren’t asked,” Sister Bernadette said of the move. "We had the right to stay here until the end of our lives and that was broken.
"I have been obedient all my life, but it was too much."
The Archdiocese of Salzburg insists that the building is no longer suitable for the nuns, and that they received “essential, professional, and good medical care,” at the nursing home.
The Archdiocese took over the convent in 2022, in partnership with Augustinian monastery the Reichersberg Abbey. Provost Markus Grasl from the abbey became the nuns' superior.
The women have spent the majority of their lives at the convent. Sister Bernadette attended the school in 1948, alongside the young future actress Romy Schneider.
It continues to operate as a mixed private school, after going co-ed in 2017.
Former students say the nuns have “changed so many lives in such a good way”.
Ex-pupil Sophie Tauscher told the BBC: “Goldenstein without the nuns is just not possible. When they need us, they just have to call us and we will be there, for sure.”
Now, water and electricity have been partially restored to the building. The trio have started an Instagram account, sharing prayer videos and stories of the convent's history.
The nuns say they are much happier serving one another tea and plum dumplings than being at the nursing home.
"Before I die in that old people's home, I would rather go to a meadow and enter eternity that way," said Sister Bernadette.