Pastor Johanetta Prinzessin Reuss (1957-2025)

 

HSH Princess Anna Elisabeth Johanetta was born in Vienna, Austria, on June 19, 1957.  She was the second of four children of the late HSH Heinrich IV, Prince Reuss (1919-2012) and HSH Princess Marie Louise of Salm-Horstmar (1918-2015).

The 2016 wedding of Prince Maximilian of Sayn Wittgenstein-Berleburg and Franziska Balzer.(both photos) @Marianne van Dam

She grew up at Schloss Ernstbrunn in Lower Austria.  The princess studied theology in Vienna, Göttingen, and Munich, and was ordained as a Lutheran pastor in 1985.  She served congregations in Lutzmannsburg, Burgenland, Vienna-Liesing, and Saxony before her retirement in 2011.  

The princess was installed as the pastor in the Lutzmannsburg parish, becoming Austria's first female pastor.  

In 2003, she was installed as the first female prison chaplain at Stein prison.  At the time of her installation, Pastor Reuss said: "Prison is a place to which we are especially called with the Gospel, where work is certainly not easy, but where every act of compassion falls on fertile ground."

@Marianne van Dam

In 2008, she began studying art at the Vienna Adult Education Center for the Arts.

http://kfvstockerau.at/gastkuenstler/reuss/reuss.html

https://www.otz.de/regionen/bad-lobenstein/article220803197/Letzte-Fuerstin-Reuss-bei-Wien-beigesetzt.html 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGaYvk6o_lc

The late Pastor is survived by her brother, Heinrich XIV Reuss, and two sisters, Princess Caroline, Baroness von Hohenbühel gen. Hueffer zu Rasen and Princess Esperance, Countess Kinsky v Wchinitz u. Tettau and their families.