The Sisters of the Precious Blood of Dayton, Ohio, owe their spiritual roots to Mother Maria Anna Brunner, a spiritual daughter of St. Gaspar del Bufalo, the founder of the Missionaries of the Precious Blood.

The Congregation originated at Castle Loewnberg in Switzerland. Her son, Fr. Francis de Sales Brunner, a Missionary of the Precious Blood, was instrumental in bringing the first of these Sisters to America in 1844.

While in Rome, Bishop Purcell of Cincinnati heard of German-speaking religious and petitioned for some of them to come to Ohio to minister to the large number of German-speaking Catholics in the northern part of Ohio. Subsequently, Fr. Brunner was sent to America in 1843. He brought with him on his first trip over to the new country seven Precious Blood Priests and seven Precious Blood Brothers, as well as many relics which he had been acquiring for several years. The following summer, in July of 1844, the first three Sisters of the Precious Blood arrived in this area, bringing with them the remainder of his collection of relics.

The first permanent settlement in America was established at New Riegel, Ohio, where, on Christmas Eve, 1844, six Sisters of the Precious Blood began their nightly vigils adoring the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar in the wilderness of America.

The cornerstone for the convent at Maria Stein was laid on November 16, 1845. In the fall of 1846, Father Brunner dedicated the Chapel under the title of Mary Help of Christians and called the convent Maria Stein in memory of the Swiss Benedictine convent of that name where he was ordained. On September 24, 1846, eight Sisters came from the New Riegel convent to Maria Stein and, entering the house built for them as their first convent, began perpetual adoration that very night.

The "new" convent for the Sisters was finished in 1901, a four-story structure using wood from the surrounding heavily wooded landscape, and bricks made locally. The walls of the structure are four bricks thick.

In 1850 Loewenberg was sold and all the Sisters came to America. Ten foundations consisting of one large building housing the members of that community and extensive farmland then arose in quick succession in Mercer, Auglaize, Seneca, and Putnam Counties in Ohio, and Jay County, Indiana.

Maria Stein was the Motherhouse of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Precious Blood until 1923 when it was transferred to Dayton, Ohio. There the unique privilege of perpetual adoration enjoyed at Maria Stein (and other large communities) was extended to comprise also the great grace of perpetual Exposition of the Most Blessed Sacrament.


Since 1844 the Sisters of the Precious Blood have served God’s people in the United States in the fields of education, pastoral ministry, health care, and social services: in schools, orphanages, nursing homes, parishes, and seminaries. Their ministries have spread the influence and spirituality of the Sisters of the Precious Blood to many states in this country, to Chile in South America and Guatemala in Central America.

To learn more about the Sisters' history and ministry today, check out their website:  www.preciousbloodsistersdayton.org