Sisters of Saint Joseph of Saint-Marc

The origins of the Congregation lie in their foundation in 1845 by the Abbé Pierre Paul Blanck (1809 - )[1] in the remaining buildings of St. Mark Abbey (Alemannic German: St. Marx) in Gueberschwihr (Geberschweier) in the canton of Rouffach, Alsace, of a women's community under the Benedictine Rule who accepted the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, the manual labor and the care of orphans.

Against all odds it did continue and was formally constituted as a Congregation on 9 October 1868, with the election and appointment of Sister Maria Xavier as Superior General.

The German Sisters were forced to leave Alsace after the end of World War I and to seek new premises in Germany, which they found in the former St. Trudpert's monastery in Münstertal.

During the economic collapse of Germany in 1929, the fraud and bankruptcy of the Freiburger Bank brought the community to the brink of ruin.

After the end of the war the community at last found itself able to resume the interrupted renovations halted by the Great Depression.

The French province, which has its provincial motherhouse in Saint-Marc, has 18 communities, with Sisters from France, Germany, India, Madagascar and Congo.

By the end of the 1970s four other houses had been opened in India, at Palakkad in Kerala, Bhikkangaon and Nalvat, both in Madhya Pradesh and at Haresmara in Orissa.