Sisters of Social Service

The Sisters of Social Service (SSS; Hungarian: Szociális Testvérek Társasága, Latin: Societas Sororum Socialium) are a Roman Catholic religious institute of women founded in Hungary in 1923 by Margit Slachta.

In 1920 she became the first woman elected to the Hungarian Parliament, where she actively promoted workers’ rights, stressing the well-being of women, children and families.

[2] She was inspired by the social and economic turmoil in Europe following the First World War, when tens of thousands of people were living in wretched conditions across the continent.

Hungary had seen its territory reduced by some sixty percent by the Allies and was also suffering from waves of political terror by competing forces, as well as conquest by the Kingdom of Romania of much of its eastern regions.

[3] A dedicated Catholic, Slachta was led to form a religious institute along with some of her coworkers to carry out their commitment to care for the needy and suffering around them.

To this end, in place of the traditional religious habit of floor-length robes and veils, they adopted simple gray suits as worn by other women of the day.

[5] On December 27, 1944, members of the pro-Nazi Arrow Cross Party surrounded the hostel Sister Sára Salkaházi ran and began to arrest the Jewish women being sheltered there, along with a Christian volunteer.

The outbreak of the war and the subsequent occupation of Hungary by Communist forces had led to a separation of the communities of the Sisters in the United States and Canada from the Motherhouse in Budapest.

[7] Today the three separate congregations established from the work of Sister Margit are formed into a federation to honor their joint commitment to her vision.