Trinitarian Sisters of Valence

The Congregation of the Most Holy Trinity was founded in France during the 17^th century.  It began with a small group of four Trinitarian Tertiaries of Saint-Nizier en Forez (Lyon) who, in 1660, chose to band together for the purpose of adoring and praising the Holy Trinity.  By 1665, the group had become a religious community located in Valence. It is for this reason that they have come to be known as the Trinitarian Sisters of Valence.  They adopted the rule of the reformed Trinitarian nuns of Spain, approved by Urban VIII in 1634, as their own rule of life.  Leo XIII approved their Constitutions in 1891 and the congregation became a religious institute of pontifical right.  Their present-day Constitutions, approved by the Holy See in 1984, clearly show forth the Sisters’ commitment to the adoration of the Holy Trinity and their desire to share in the work of redemption, with the gift of their own religious life. Trinitarian spirituality unites this congregation with the Trinitarian Order through links which span three centuries.  From the very beginning, the Sisters worked in hospitals and schools, with special attention to the poor.  The number of processions of ransomed captives which ended up at the hospital of the Sisters in Valence can in no way be said to be small.  Having survived the French Revolution, the Sisters of Valence have been living a time of expansion.  They have opened new houses for ministry to the sick and the elderly, and schools for ministry to youth.  In 1840, the Sisters went to Algeria to open hospitals, schools, nurseries and orphanages.  In 1886, facing the French laws of secularization, they went to England.  Later, the Sisters went to Switzerland, Belgium and Italy.  In 1964, after the Trinitarian Sisters of Marseille joined the Valence Congregation, the Sisters went to French-speaking Canada.  For several years, during the 1960s and 1970s, the Sisters worked in the American Midwest with the Trinitarian men of the USA Province.  In more recent times, the Sisters have established communities in Spain and Ireland as well as in Gabon, South Korea, Columbia, China and the Cameroon.  Since 1928, they have been working with the Trinitarian Order in the missions of Madagascar, where they now have more than ten communities.  It was some Sisters of their Paris community who, in the mid-1940s, went to take care and charge of Cerfroid, the 13^th Trinitarian motherhouse.  Today the community at Cerfroid is composed of Sisters of Valence and men of the Trinitarian Order who joined them there in 1986.  The congregation presently has 50 houses and some 400 religious, dedicated to the glory of the Holy Trinity and to teaching, hospital work and the missionary apostolate.  The Generalate of the congregation is located in Lyon, France.

Be sure to visit their website:  http://soeurs.trinitaires.free.fr.