By Karen Vance
Enquirer contributor

When Sister Regina Kusnir entered the convent of the Vincentian Sisters of Charity after completing eighth grade, she thought she would be a member of that order for the rest of her life.

But Kusnir, 57, originally from Akron, will profess new vows Sunday when she and 48 of her fellow Vincentian Sisters, headquartered in Bedford, Ohio, near Cleveland, take vows as Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati.

Faced with an aging congregation - the median age is 78 - and declining numbers, the Vincentian Sisters began looking for a solution to save their congregation. They found it in a merger with the 501-member congregation Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati, headquartered in Delhi Township.

"The experience is very much that these are two equals coming together," said Kusnir, a member of the Vincentians' leadership team. "You can't make that happen. It's God's providence. We're a kind of kin. There was a real sense of at-homeness with each other."

Both congregations unanimously agreed to the merger in March 2003 after more than two years of getting to know each other. Sunday, the Vincentians will officially dissolve their congregation and more than 150 of their new sisters will travel to Bedford to see them take their new vows.

On July 31, the newest Sisters of Charity will travel to Cincinnati to renew those vows at the Immaculate Conception Chapel at the Mount St. Joseph Motherhouse in Delhi Township.

"They are wonderful women who have made this incredible journey of faith, and I'm in awe of that," said Sister Barbara Hagedorn, president of the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati.

The merger is the first of its kind within the Sisters of Charity Federation, an organization of congregations rooted in the principles of St. Vincent DePaul and St. Elizabeth Seton, with 4,000 members worldwide. The Sisters of Charity share their missions of caring for the poor through education, health care and other ministries.

For Sister Christine Rody, the general superior of the Vincentians, the decision to merge with another larger and younger - the Sisters of Charity median age is 69.7 - congregation was a decision to choose life.

"As the sisters are aging and retiring, we have fewer and fewer sisters to carry out the mission. We had to decide if we should let the congregation die or continue to carry out our mission," said Rody, 61, of Bedford. "We decided we were called to life."

Groups rooted in mission of caring for others

The Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati are rooted in the Sisters of Charity, founded by St. Elizabeth Seton as the first community of women religious in the United States in Emmitsburg, Md. They came to Cincinnati in 1829 and became the first permanent women's community in the then-diocese of Cincinnati.

The sisters formed a separate congregation in 1852 and founded the College of Mount St. Joseph, Good Samaritan Hospital and the St. Joseph Home. They continue to operate five non-profit ministries, Bayley Place Retirement Community, the College of Mount St. Joseph, St. Joseph Home, the Seton Family Center and Seton High School.

The Vincentian Sisters of Charity are rooted in the Daughters of Charity, founded by DePaul and St. Louise DeMarillac in Europe. The congregation continued its mission work from Satu-Mare, Romania, to Pittsburgh in 1902. And in 1928, five sisters came to Bedford, Ohio, at the request of the Cleveland bishop to serve a growing Slovak population.

They established an independent congregation in 1939 with 44 sisters. They operate the Light of Hearts Villa through a partnership with another Cleveland-area group of sisters. After the merger, the Sisters of Charity will continue.