86-year-old Regina eats pizza, 88-year-old Bernadette sews. 82-year-old Rita boxes and swings a sledgehammer at the tires.
On Instagram, the three nuns share their daily lives at the Goldenstein monastery. They give interviews, pray and recount childhood memories. The monastery visitors are taking turns and the number of followers is approaching 300,000 - new milestones in the number of followers are celebrated with a cake with crackling ice torches. They sell rosaries and lucky angels via an online shop.
Despite Sister Regina, Sister Bernadette and Sister Rita having lived in the convent outside Salzburg, Austria, for decades - Bernadette since 1948 - they were forced out and into a retirement home at the end of 2023. An unhappy time followed, and in September of this year they took matters into their own hands.
Obedient all my life
With the help of a group of former students, they packed up their belongings and returned to Goldenstein. While the sisters were away, the locks had been changed, so they called a locksmith - and effectively became squatters. Local tradesmen helped restore electricity and water.
"I have been obedient all my life, but it just became too much," Sister Bernadette told the BBC shortly after the escape.
Markus Grasl, leader of the Roman Catholic nun order to which the sisters belong, lashed out, calling the decision “completely incomprehensible” and “an escalation,” he said in a statement.
But the unlikely escape had made headlines far beyond Austria. Support for the rebel sisters grew rapidly, exploding when they set up an Instagram account upon their return. The very first post showed the nuns enjoying takeaway schnitzel and water in wine glasses.
Die in a meadow
Thanks to the media outcry, Grasl suddenly backed down at the end of November. Now Rita, Regina and Bernadette are allowed to stay, if they stop welcoming external visitors and return to a “regulated religious life” - without a presence on social media.
The announcement quickly met with criticism. A gag order worthy of North Korea, the sisters' lawyer Reinhard Bruzek raged on Austrian public service television.
"We cannot agree to this agreement. Without the media, we would have been silenced," Sister Regina announced in an Instagram video.
Thus, their existence as squatters continues. Because they stay at the monastery.
"I would rather go to a meadow and enter eternity there than die in that nursing home," Sister Bernadette tells the BBC.
