User:AbigailSLilly/sandbox

Community of the Holy Family (CHF)

In origin, the community was formed of well educated young women who wished to commit themselves to educational work and evangelism. Three of the four original members, who were admitted as novices in August 1896, were graduates of Newnham College, Cambridge; one of these was Agnes Mason, the foundress. The focus of the community's work was in London and the south-east of England, with convents and schools in the capital and in both Kent and Sussex. However, there was also a small branch house at Cambridge for sisters wishing to study. Another house was at Peakirk, near Peterborough, attached to the ancient Chapel of Saint Pega, for those Sisters wishing to follow a more contemplative form of the religious life. The Community also ran a teacher training college at Naini Tal in India. Sister Dilys left the Community at the Reverend Mother's request in 1968 and joined the Community of the Sisters of the Love of God in Oxford. In January 1997 the remaining three sisters moved to Malling Abbey in Kent and lived in the gatehouse, alongside the resident Benedictine community.

Two of the sisters died in 2002 and 2006, leaving just Sr Jean Beare CHF. The community closed with the death of Sr Jean on 27 November 2010. Sr Julia Bolton Holloway, educated by the nuns of the Community, with a doctorate in Medieval Studies from Berkeley, joined them for their final four years at Holmhurst St Mary, and continues the ethos of the Mother Foundress for education and ecumenism, but as a Roman Catholic hermit in Florence, Italy.

In April of 2020, with permission of Sr. Julia Bolton Holloway and the Diocese of Chichester, Sr. Abigail Lilly rechartered the order in the Episcopal Diocese of West Virginia in the Episcopal Church. The order is no longer a former order.