Clicked millions of times!Doner kebab video conquers Instagram – Sister Clarita shows life behind the monastery walls

May 1, 2026 around 6:45 p.m Clock

After the viral kebab video, “all hell broke loose” in the Arenberg Monastery in Koblenz. This is how convent sister Ursula describes the unplanned hustle and bustle surrounding the Instagram video that shows her 92-year-old fellow sister Irmingard eating her first kebab – it was viewed millions of times in just one night. The fact that the nuns are breaking stereotypes has attracted international attention.

For Sister Irmingard, who has lived in the monastery for 69 years, the sudden attention came as a complete surprise. “Eight million clicked in, unbelievable,” she says. “Now I thought, what can you do for eight million people?” she shares her thought. And she also has an answer ready: “Now you can only pray for them.” She will commend the sorrows of the people to the Lord. “He’ll sort it out,” she says.

Despite the many clicks, likes and comments, she doesn't feel famous because she's not the type for that. Will she fill the gap now that Bavaria's Prime Minister and self-confessed kebab fan Markus Söder has announced that he will post fewer food photos on social media in the future? “No, for God’s sake!” she says, laughing. “That’s not our style.”

The 28-year-old Sister Clarita filmed and posted the video, and she also regularly shares insights from the monastery, where she has lived for just over three years. Your goal: clear up clichés. One of them: “A lot of people think that we get church tax and therefore somehow don’t have to work,” says Sister Clarita. But that's not true.

“I work in an office at the German Liturgical Institute in Trier, I have a completely normal employment contract there.” The sisters' salaries and pensions go into a community fund. Life in the monastery is financed from this and pocket money of 120 euros per month is paid out. The sisters have vacation four weeks a year.

Many people also don't know that, unlike nuns who live in seclusion, the sisters in an apostolic monastery can also leave the monastery walls. For example, when the film “Conclave” came out, the sisters went to the cinema together. For Sister Clarita, exercise outside the monastery is very important: “I like to exercise,” she says, and she does it by cycling, climbing or meeting friends, among other things.

What Sister Clarita wants to counter many clichés: “We are completely normal people from the 21st century.” She likes to listen to podcasts when she's out and about and, as a listener of “Aktenzeichen XY”, admits to being a true crime fan – as a child she once wanted to be a police officer. However, Sister Clarita is also committed to a relatively simple lifestyle – she and her fellow sisters have taken vows of poverty, obedience and chastity. She plans silence regularly, but it's not always easy. “I would actually rather read a book and then I find myself going on Insta for a moment.” Thoughts that many people outside of monastery walls are certainly familiar with.

Sister Clarita doesn't wear makeup, doesn't watch trash TV and only uses perfume on Sundays. Alcohol and sweets, on the other hand, are not taboo.

A cliché that the sister would like to do away with is the idea that you only go to a monastery if you “haven't gotten a husband.” She counters this: “I hardly know any people who are so reflective when they make a decision.” It was clear to her early on that the space next to her would remain empty. From the age of 15, she consciously dealt with it. She thinks, among other things, of friends she knows from her time in the student dormitory and adds: “My form of relationship is friendship.”

The cliché that convent sisters are old does not apply to young Sister Clarita, but the average age of the 35 sisters in Arenberg Monastery is around 81 years. It was only on the morning of the conversation that a nun died – the sixth this year after a flu epidemic in January. “What’s actually sad for me is not that we are somehow becoming fewer, but that I am burying all these sisters,” says the 28-year-old.

The 50-year-old sister Ursula is also very active on Instagram. Whether she is an influencer? “Yes, hopefully,” she says. “I'd like to be. I'm beyond the numbers, but I'd like to have an influence.” She enjoys sharing her faith with people.

Sister Ursula has lived here for 20 years. The only thing she really misses is boredom and “sometimes a couch where you can just hang out and chill for an afternoon.”

And yet she says: “I'm just totally happy and in doing so I'm breaking the cliché of a nun – is she allowed to do that? Is she allowed to be that happy?” But her time in the monastery also showed her that not all women had such positive experiences with the church. That made her a feminist. “I fight a lot for women’s rights, including in the church,” says the sister.

Sources used: Alina Grünky, dpa