[1] The striking convent buildings date from the early 1970s,[2] but the community traces its origins back to St. Joseph's Institute, founded with an educational remit at Ilanz in 1865.

For twenty years he travelled abroad, visiting Savoy, Maryland (USA), Liège, Münster, southern Germany, Solferino, Padua and Ragusa (as Dubrovnik was then called).

Church-state conflict was a feature of the pontificate of Pope Pius IX, and in 1874, the Jesuits were officially banned across Switzerland, as part of a wider Kulturkampf which traditional English language history sometimes perceives as a purely German clash.

Depuoz resigned from the Jesuits and returned to Surselva, his home district, keen to support education and attend to social deprivation in what was at that time a remote and under-developed part of Switzerland.

Important community institutions came under public control,[7] including in 1973 the hospital in Ilanz and the nursing academy (which subsequently, in 2011, was simply abolished by the cantonal authorities).

The architect Walter Moser has produced a contemplative white-walled interior, reminiscent in some of its elements of the work of Le Corbusier.

The altar, ambon and tabernacle, along with the seat for the officiating priest, are formed from Swiss Cristallina marble by the Zürich sculptor Alfred Huber (1908–1982).

The ceiling has been painted by Max Rüedi [de] from Zürich with "undulating moving ribbons" ("wellig bewegten Farbbändern").

[8] The twelve stained glass windows made by Max Rüedi together comprise an important feature in the overall design of the convent church.