Mariam Soulakiotis the killer nun

Mariam Soulakiotis was a Greek abbess and criminal, known as one of the serial killers with the most victims.

The story of Mariam Soulakiotis

Mariam, whose real name was Marina, was born around 1883 in Keratea, Greece, but little is known of her childhood. What little we know says she grew up in a poor family and worked in a factory before becoming a nun around 1900.

She soon became the confidante of her superior, the Orthodox bishop Matthew Karpathakis. In 1923 the Greek Church adopted the new Gregorian calendar and Matthew, who opposed it, became the leader of one of the “Old Calendarist” groups, rejected both by the official Church and by the other Old Calendarists. Mariam followed him.

In 1927 the two founded a monastery near Keratea, the Panagia Pefkovounogiatrissa, “Our Lady the Healer of the Pine Mountain”. Officially it was also meant to treat tuberculosis patients who could not afford a sanatorium, thanks to the mountain air: from 1938 it advertised itself as a free treatment centre.

Thanks to her strong character Mariam soon took control of the monastery. From 1939, when Matthew was 78 and ill, she effectively ran it, and when he died in 1950 she officially became abbess.

Now the only one in power, she began an aggressive recruitment policy and pushed her followers to find new converts. They were preferably to be wealthy women willing to leave all their property to the monastery. At the height of her power she had more than 400 followers.

Once recruited, new followers began a life of seclusion and penance. They had to endure long fasts and penances to drive out the devil and earn their place in heaven.

Sometimes Mariam herself took part in their floggings, effectively turning them into torture.

The nun’s strong personality forced everyone into silence and any contact with the outside world was forbidden. Anyone who wanted to leave was locked in a cell for months, with very little food, until they signed over their property.

Because of this treatment many followers died of malnutrition, the hard labour they were forced into and torture. Tuberculosis patients received no treatment and were never seen by a doctor. According to the records, five hundred people had left everything to the monastery and then died there.

Mariam’s power lasted throughout the 1940s, but at the end of that decade something began to give.

The arrest

The police received many reports of horrible screams coming from the monastery and, after a complaint by the daughter of one of the followers, decided to investigate.

On the night of 4 December 1950 more than eighty-five officers raided the monastery. They found half-naked, malnourished and sick elderly women tied up in the basements, and took away the thirty-six children living there, including a girl who had been led to believe she was an orphan.

At first Mariam was arrested only for minor offences, such as illegally exporting olive oil to Cyprus and importing tyres, but as testimony came in the charges grew more and more serious: homicide, fraud, forging wills, blackmail and torture.

The trials

Three trials followed. In the first, between 1951 and 1952, the nun, nicknamed “Mother Rasputin”, was sentenced to 26 months in prison, partly for the illegal custody of the girl found in the monastery.

She was found guilty of seven murders. Among the victims were Mr and Mrs Baka, who had left their property to the monastery: when the wife wanted to leave with her children, Mariam had her locked for six months in a cell where tuberculosis patients had been, until she died; then the same happened to her husband. Another couple starved to death after signing over their home, and two nuns died from beatings she ordered as penance.

In 1953 she was sentenced to 10 years in prison for embezzlement, fraud, unlawful detention and abuse of followers, and in a third trial another 4 years were added.

Mariam denied everything to the end, calling the charges “satanic fictions”, and received her sentences without emotion, crossing herself and murmuring a “prayer of vengeance” to Saint Matthew.

She died in Averoff Prison in Athens on 23 November 1954, aged 71 according to some sources, before all the trials were over. She was buried at the monastery, next to Bishop Matthew.

Mariam was one of the most prolific serial killers in history, using her strong personality to manipulate her followers and lead them to their deaths. There are 27 confirmed victims, but 177 if you count the sick who died untreated.

And yet the monastery still exists: in 2022 it was still home to nuns convinced of her innocence, who venerate her as a saint.

Sources

• Wikipedia, Mariam Soulakiotis