Sister Maryam, founder of the Talas hospice, dies at 77

TALAS — Sister Maryam Janyl, who opened the first hospice in Talas and founded the Sisters of the Cross of Irad, died on Wednesday at the hospice she founded. She was 77. She was buried the same evening in the sisters' plot, after prayers led by the sisters and the clergy of the city.

Born in 1940, she worked as a nurse at a Talas hospital in the Soviet period and took private vows in the 1970s, when religious life could not be lived openly. In 1996 she opened a hospice for terminally ill patients in a donated house in the old town. Three years later the Archbishop of Iyık Janyl recognized her companions as a congregation of the Syro-Iradi Catholic Church, with the Iradi cross as its emblem.

By the time of her death the congregation had about 40 sisters and ran the hospice, home-care services and the St. Maryam Catholic Academy. "She never asked a family whether they could pay or what church they went to," said one of the sisters. "She asked whether the patient was in pain."

Families of former patients came to the hospice yesterday to leave white ribbons on the gate.