Six years after the arrival of the Missionary Benedictine Sisters of Tutzing in Namibia, Mother General Melania Vollmer, OSB, established the community as a Priory on 26 June 1926. The Priory House was initially accommodated in the Roman Catholic Hospital. During the 1990s, the members of the Priory Chapter discussed the situation once again and agreed to move the Priory to another place. To find a suitable one proved difficult until the Sisters learnt that Dr. Siegfried RÜDIGER, who lived on a 29 hectare smallholding just outside Windhoek was about to sell his plot and would want to move to Swakopmund. The Sisters went to see him and bought the property. After the Generalate in Rome had given its approval to the construction of a new Priory House on 18 December 1997, a contract was signed with a building firm. The groundbreaking and the laying of the foundation stone was done by Fr. Johannes NEUDEGGER, OSB, on 10 February 1999 in the presence of all the Sisters. Decora Company was awarded with the contract to build the Priory House and they completed it in time for Archbishop Bonifatius HAUSHIKU to bless it on 15 July 2000. The seat of the Priory was then transferred from the Roman Catholic Hospital in Windhoek to this newly built St. Benedict Priory House in Nubuamis. It was a set-up of several buildings, each of which was named after a saint. It seemed that the Sisters could now be comfortably accommodated but later it became necessary to add a few more buildings to the Priory House complex. Between 2005 and 2009, a large hall was erected as well as the St. Maurus House for the Junior Professed Sisters with a separate wing for guests.
The Priory House is the venue for the formation of candidates. Young Namibian girls who wish to become Tutzing Sisters are trained here through different Stages as Aspirants, Postulants, Novices and Junior Sisters.
In December 2020, when Windhoek Priory celebrated its 100 years of the arrival of the Tutzing Sisters, it consisted of 87 Finally Professed Sisters, 20 Temporary Professed Sisters, 1 Novice, 4 Postulants and 4 Aspirants. They represent no less than 8 nationalities (Namibia, South Africa, Angola, Australia, Korea, Filipino, Nigeria and Germany). Apart from the formation of the young, there were also a number of elderly Sisters resident in this place who had retired from active mission work. Included in the Priory House is therefore a well-equipped infirmary for elderly.
Already on 03 February 2002, “St. Benedict Kindergarten” was started at the Priory House. For the first five years classes were held under the trees. Later a small room was built to accommodate the bigger children, but as the number of children increased, proper classrooms were erected in 2007.
The main apostolate of the Priory House community is to train the members, who are in various stages of formation, to become women of faith, ready to do missionary work wherever this may be required. This is our motherhouse in Namibia, where the Sisters are engaged in formation work and in teaching at St. Benedict’s Kindergarten and Preschool, doing work in the garden and the farm. We are also involved in pastoral work in Okatunda, Okahandja Park and St. Augustine Parish in Soweto, visiting homes and a nearby prison and running our MBST-VTC (Vocational Training Centre) which offers different short and long courses.
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