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Teresita Barajuen: A world-record 86 years in a monastery

Teresita Barajuen: A cloistered nun who spent 86 years in a Spanish monastery, Sister Teresita Barajuan passed on at age 105.

  • By Associated Press

| Madrid

A nun believed to hold the world record of 86 years cloistered in a monastery has died in Spain.

Sister Maria Romero, abbess of the Buenafuente del Sistal monastery northeast of Madrid said Wednesday that Sister Teresita Barajuen had died overnight. She was 105.

She entered the Cistercian monastery when she was 19, the abbess said.

Barajuen acknowledged in interviews that like many young women at the time, she never intended being a nun but entered the monastery because of family pressure.

In 2011, Barajuen left the monastery for the first time in 40 years to meet retired Benedict XVI during a papal visit to Madrid. She had entered the monastery on the same day he was born.

According to CloisteredLife.com, "Aside from a distraction of the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) that caused the nuns to flee from the fighting, Sister Teresa has lived her vocation as a cloistered nun in that place.

A journalist for the prominent Spanish newspaper El Mundo, Jesús García, authored a book this year about ten nuns, of whom Sister Teresa was included, titled, What is a Girl Like You Doing In A Place Like This?"

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