Marie de Zorn, born in 1625 in Luxembourg City, was the daughter of Jean de Zorn, a lawyer at the provincial council, and Louise de Marche. As an only child, she acquired a large fortune thanks to several family inheritances. Touched by the suffering inflicted on the population following the Thirty Years' War, Marie de Zorn planned to found a house of hospitable nuns. In 1671, she sent for three nursing sisters from Aachen to care for the sick and destitute. Shortly afterwards, the sisters formed the independent congregation of the Sisters of St. Elizabeth.
After a short stay in the Zorn family's house near the church of St Michael, the sisters move to the St John's Hospice in the Stadtgrund, founded by Margaret of Brabant. In 1684, during the war between the Spanish and the French, the hospital was destroyed by fire. Marie de Zorn opened the doors of her house to the nuns and patients until the reopening of their hospital in the Stadtgrund.
On 6 November 1691, Marie de Zorn died. She bequeathed most of her fortune to the hospice. The benefactress was buried next to her parents in the chapel of St Michael. Although the tomb no longer exists today, a memorial plaque honours her at the civil hospice in Pfaffenthal.
Sources:
● Wormer Guiden & Scouten/ René Muller: 1890-1900: 100 Joer Wormer Klouschter. Wormeldingen, 1990, pp. 67-70.
● Congregation of the Hospitaller Sisters of St. Elizabeth: Congregation of the Hospitaller Sisters of St. Elizabeth - The Corporate Philosophy, June 2001.
● Auguste Neÿen: Zorn Marie de dans: Biographie luxembourgeoise : Histoire des hommes distingués originaires de ce pays [...], Luxembourg, 1860, Editions Pierre Brück, pp.273-275.