HISTORY

As members of the Dominican Congregation of the Holy Cross, we are active contemplatives,
vowed and bonded members sharing a variety of gifts and cultures.

As prophetic witnesses in collaboration with others, we will call ourselves, the Church and society to credibility.
We will be responsible members of the universe. We will promote the dignity of marginalized persons.
We will reject violence in ourselves and in society in order that all Generations will grow and cherish life.

With the world as our frontier, we are open to the Spirit.

This Vision Statement that our congregation embraced during our 1995 Chapter serves as a guide to our efforts as a community to be faithful and creative in our quest to live out the Charism of Dominic and our founders in the world in which we walk today.
A reflective look at our history indicates that the circle of the seasons has found us striving toward these goals down through the years. It is in this light that we invite you to...

OUR STORY

Our story is the story of a forgotten rendezvous. We were founded as a mission of the Dominican monastery of the Holy Cross in Regensburg, Germany. This monastery was founded in 1233 and has been in existence consistently since then. Our Sisters have a close and rich relationship with the current nuns at Holy Cross. Many of us have had the good fortune to visit there and even to go on retreat there. To honor a request for Sisters to come to America and teach the immigrant German children, four women religious from Holy Cross Monastery in Regensburg, Germany set sail for the United States. They were left unmet on a dock in New York City on August 26, 1853 and sought the help of the Redemptorist Fathers in Manhattan. From there they were befriended by Father Stephen Raffeiner, a pastor from Brooklyn, who had crossed the East River to go to confession at the Redemptorist Church. Sisters Josepha, Augustine, Francesca and Jacobina were given shelter in the rectory basement of Most Holy Trinity Parish in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and – within a week of their arrival – took charge of the parish school. Thus began an era of Catholic education in the Dominican Tradition.

This small missionary band of Sisters would be joined by a few more from Germany. The remarkable growth of this branch of Dominicans in the United States began in earnest in 1857 with the first American postulant and spread to the founding of a dozen sister Congregations ministering throughout the country and the world.

By the 1870’s larger quarters were needed and farm property was purchased on Long Island in the village of Amityville. Thus, like many organizations borrowing its identity from the locale, we became known as “The Dominican Sisters of Amityville.”

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