Magdalena Maria Epstein

Magdalena Maria Epstein, OP (2 August 1875 – 6 September 1947) was a Polish Catholic nurse who pioneered nursing education in Poland. She later became a Dominican nun in 1931 and currently on the process for beatification since 2004. On 22 August, she was baptized in the Parish Church of St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist in Pilica as Maria Aniela Wiktoria. When her mother died, her father remarried with whom he had three sons. A year after the wedding, he was struck by paralysis and used a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

Nursing career After the death of her parents, Epstein devoted herself entirely to caring for the needy, the poor and the sick. She was buried at the Rakowicki Cemetery in Kraków in a common neo-Gothic brick tomb of the Dominican Fathers.

Beatification Epstein commemorative plaque, 7-9 Pijarska street, Old Town, Kraków, Poland. Convinced of Epstein's holiness, after collecting documentation, the Dominican sisters turned to the Metropolitan of Kraków on 5 August 2003 with a request to raise her to the altars. On 30 September 2004, Cardinal Franciszek Macharski opened her beatification process in the Dominican Sisters' church in Gródek.

Commemoration In 2009, the Dominican Sisters published an album about her life and work entitled Wierna Miłości. On 12 March 2012, a special Sister Magdalena Epstein Foundation was established.