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(82,333 posts)
Tue Apr 25, 2017, 07:53 AM Apr 2017

Catholic deacon given job of hermit at 350-year-old cliffside retreat

Stan Vanuytrecht beat 50 applicants to win the role and occupy one of the last hermitages in central Europe



A Saalfelden hermit, Gottfried Scholenateuer, pictured in 1955. The hermitage has not been vacant since it was started 350 years ago (Photo: Hans Enzwieser/BIPs/Getty Images)

by Staff Reporter
posted Friday, 21 Apr 2017

A Catholic deacon has won a competition to live in one of central Europe’s last hermitages, beating 50 other applicants to occupy a 350-year-old cliffside cell above a small Austrian town.

Stan Vanuytrecht, 58, responded to an advertisement placed by Fr Alois Moser, which asked for someone with a “connection to Christian belief” and “at peace with themselves”.

The role, which is unpaid, became vacant after the previous incumbent left to pursue a writing career in Vienna. The hermitage, in Saalfeden, 40 miles south of Salzburg, has been occupied every year since it was built 350 years ago.

Vanuytrecht, a former artillery officer originating from Belgium, told the Austria Press Agency: “When I read about it, I thought to myself: that’s the place for me.”

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2017/04/21/catholic-deacon-given-job-of-hermit-at-350-year-old-cliffside-retreat/

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