OSSR
E-mailsThe Order of the Most Holy Redeemer
(Ordo Sanctissimi Redemptoris)
The Order of the Most Holy Redeemer is a contemplative institute of nuns inaugurated in Scala on 13th May 1731. A community of religious women provisionally under the Visitandine rule had been established in Scala after a mission by the Pii Operari in 1719. In 1724 the community was joined by Ven. Maria Celeste Crostarosa and her two sisters. In the following year Maria Celeste announced that in a vision she had been instructed by Christ the Redeemer concerning a new rule and habit to be adopted by the nuns. Father Tommaso Falcoia, the director of the community, was reluctant to agree until he had received a favourable report from his penitent, St. Alphonsus. This was in 1730, and with the approval of the Bishop of Scala the new institute was formally established on the feast of Pentecost of the following year. It received Pontifcal approbation on 8th June 1750.
A disagreement with Father Falcoia occasioned the departure of Maria Celeste from Scala in
1732. After great difficulties she succeeded in 1738 in establishing a new convent in
Foggia under the Redemptoristine rule. The community of Scala, at the request St.
Alphonsus, Bishop of Sant'Agata dei Goti, made a foundation his episcopal city on 29th
June 1766.
These three houses in southern Italy represented the en Order until 1831. In that year
Eugénie Dijon and Antoinette Welsersheimb, two Viennese ladies, were received as Sister
Mary Alphonsus and Sister Mary Anne Joseph. Owing to troubled political conditions it had
been impossible for them to remain in Sant'Agata as they had intended, so they received
the habit in Rome and returned at once to Vienna.
From their foundation others followed, among them that of Bruges in Belgium, established in 1841. The Belgian Sisters have been the source of further foundations in many parts of the world. Some of them came to Italy in 1910 to assist the venerable community of Scala, and in 1931 a Belgian, Mother Mary Philomena became superior of the community in Foggia. The Order has spread widely and is established in North and South America, Asia, Africa and Australia as well as Europe.
One of the latest OSSR foundations is the Convent of BIELSKO, Poland (27.06.1995). The Superior Mother is Urszula Nowinska OSSR.
