Anne Lehner
96, Encino
Sister Anne Lehner never forgot her narrow escape from communist Hungary in 1952.
She and two other nuns were about to cross the border into Austria on foot when they were spotted by guards. Ducking beneath the bushes to avoid the bullets whizzing past her head, Lehner found a hole in a fence and crawled through it, eventually making her way to a farmhouse where she knew she would find shelter.
Her two traveling companions were less fortunate. One was killed, the other imprisoned.
“The political structures of the Soviet Union made life really terrible for nuns in Hungary,” said Sister Maribeth Larkin, general director of the Sisters of Social Service. “Even though there were a couple of hundred sisters there at the time, they all had to go underground and stay underground until the Cold War ended.”
Lehner, who died Nov. 19 at age 96 after being hospitalized with COVID-19, was born in Hungary on Jan. 14, 1924. She joined the Sisters of Social Service in 1944 just after graduating from college.
The Sisters of Social Service is an order of religious women who are called not to the contemplative life of the cloister, but instead to work in centers of urban life. The mission is twofold: Help those on the margins of society, and work to change the systems that create injustice. The order was founded in 1923 by Sister Margaret Slachta, a social worker and the first woman elected to the Hungarian Parliament.
After fleeing Hungary, Lehner joined Slachta in Vienna. The two traveled to the United States in 1953, landing in upstate New York. Lehner worked at the Catholic Charities in Lackawanna, and at the House of Providence in Syracuse — a residence for children with difficult backgrounds.
She took a leadership role in the order in 1975. After the Cold War ended, she often traveled to Slovakia, Romania, Cuba and Puerto Rico to work with sisters in those countries who had been cut off from the more modern teachings of the Catholic Church.
“She was an effective leader who challenged the community a lot,” Larkin said. “She appreciated more than some sisters do the idea that our ministries are about transformation of systems and society, they are not just direct service.”
In 2015, Lehner moved to Encino, where the order has a residence for older sisters who can no longer live alone. There, Lehner and other aging sisters took on a new ministry: one of prayer.
“After dedicating their lives to social work, they need a rest, but they are very devoted to storming the heavens with prayer,” Sister Patricia McGowan said.
Lehner remained committed to social justice until the end.
“She was an avid reader of the New York Times,” Larkin said. “It gave her inspiration for what needed her prayer.”
The virus seems to have entered the home after another sister and a caregiver spent a significant amount of time in a hospital waiting room, Larkin said. “The caregiver tested positive a couple of days later, so that’s how we think it came in,” she said.
Lehner was one of three sisters who died in the outbreak.