The Murderous Nun of Southern Greece | Mother Rasputin
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As George Carlin famously said, more people have been killed in the name of God than for any other reason.

And while George is a comedian, and yes, you could probably pick the argument apart with a fine-toothed comb, it doesn't change the fact that many people associate religion with death, dying, suffering, and torture. The Crusades, the Inquisition, the Thirty Years' War, the Holocaust, the Rwandan Genocide… we're talking millions upon millions of people killed in the name of God.

For Mother Mariam Sola-Kiotis, the murderous nun of Kereteia, Greece, a few hundred more wouldn't tip the scale too drastically. Better known as Mother Rasputin, Mariam Sola-Kiotis was a serial killer disguised in Orthodox garb. She spearheaded the torture, murder, and robbery of dozens of people within her convent. Children were stripped and hung by their toes.

Women were tied to trees and left to starve. Wealthy laypeople were tricked into signing away their fortunes. Between 1939 and 1950, she ruled the Carathea Abbey with an iron fist. The only thing her nuns feared more than her was God. And the crazy part is that Mother Rasputin still has dedicated followers today. They believe the stories are fake.

They claim clergymen were jealous of Mariam's immense wealth and concocted the tales to tear her down. To them, Mariam was a martyr who died and descended into God's loving arms. In reality, she was a killer and a con artist who's likely paying for her sins in the deepest circle of hell. Part 1: Coming into His Arms

Little is known about Mary Amsola-Chiottis before she became an Orthodox nun, but her origins in Gereteia, a small town in southeastern Attica, set the stage for the dark path she would soon follow. She joined the Church during a time of religious division. The Orthodox Church of Greece was split over the adoption of a new calendar, the old calendarists clinging to tradition, and new calendarists embracing modern reforms.

Marium, alongside the radical bishop Matthew Carpathicus, saw an opportunity in this schism. Together, they opened the Panagia Monastery, positioning it as a place of healing for the faithful. Behind the monastery's holy façade, however, lay a darker agenda. With tuberculosis ravaging Greece, Marium and Matthew claimed that the high-altitude air of their monastery could cure the deadly disease.

This wasn't a random claim. Doctors of the time genuinely believed that fresh air, sunshine, and higher elevations could combat various diseases, including TB.

There's even some truth to the idea, as studies have shown that fresh air can slow TB spread, and higher altitudes reduce how quickly TB bacteria multiply in the lungs. This same belief helped make Colorado a refuge in the 19th century, as TB patients fled the damp, disease-ridden eastern US for the cleaner, drier air of the Rocky Mountains.

Similarly, TB patients flocked to Mariam's monastery, hoping the ocean breezes and elevation would heal them. Whether the fresh air did them any good is debatable, but their time there wouldn't last long as new antibiotics became the most effective TB treatment by the 1940s. By the late 1940s, Mariam was in complete control of the monastery.

Matthew, now approaching 90 and plagued with health issues, was barely involved. Mariam handled the day-to-day operations, which largely involved conning wealthy, God-fearing women into surrendering their fortunes. If they didn't, well, God wouldn't be pleased, now would he? As Matthew's health deteriorated, Mariam grew bolder.

By World War II, he was so far gone that he couldn't supervise her actions, depending on her for everything until his final breath. Thus began Mariam's descent into crime and her transformation into the notorious Mother Rasputin. Part 2: Repent, Ye Sinners Mariam's first scam launched shortly after Matthew's death. She spread a rumor around Greece that his body smelled like flowers.

In the Catholic Church, this is called the "odor of sanctity." Instead of smelling like a rotting corpse, a saint's body will have a pleasant, floral aroma. Most examples come from the Middle Ages when many people were elevated to sainthood in the Church. One could argue that it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. A saint's inner circle claims their body smells like flowers and honey. Nobody disagrees because they fear the repercussions.

So, the word spreads, time turns it into a fact, and that person is said to have died with the odor of sanctity. Modern science compares the odor of sanctity to the smell given off by diabetics. For example, when the body can't get energy from glucose, it'll begin burning fat. This process releases byproducts called ketones. Acetone is a common type of ketone that produces a fruity-smelling aroma.

Most people compare it to nail polish remover. That's why a diabetic's breath may smell fruity. It simply means there are high levels of ketones in their bloods. Scientists have also linked this smell to fasting and starvation, which is common among religious people. So, it stands to reason that these saints may have simply been diabetic at the time of death.

As for the newly elevated St. Matthew, it turns out Mariam had poured perfume over his body to fool laypeople and build his legend. Fooling laypeople was part of Mariam's M.O. When she wasn't covering bodies in perfume, she was conning wealthy women into joining her convent and turning over their fortunes. Then, once Mariam had their cash, she'd embezzle the funds and kill the donor.

One example is the Baca family. Mr. and Mrs. Baca were the land-rich parents of three children. Mariam convinced them to join the convent and surrender their land and wealth to God. Upon joining, Mrs. Baca realized how horrible the conditions at Mariam's monastery were. She tried leaving with her children, but Mariam wouldn't allow it. Instead, she confined Mrs. Baca to a TB-infected cell.

Mrs. Baca emerged after six months. Having eaten only enough food to stay alive, she slipped into a coma and died several days later. With Mrs. Baca out of the picture, Mariam turned her attention to Mr. Baca and the children. They accused his son of harboring a demon inside his body. To expel the demon, the nuns stripped him naked, hung him upside down, and beat him until he fell unconscious.

Then, Mariam convinced Mr. Baca to intentionally infect the boy with TB by chewing his food and feeding it to him. She claimed the demon inside the boy would force him to burn down the monastery one day. He couldn't be allowed to live. Their way of life depended on his death. Soon, Mr. Baca met the same fate as his wife.

It's unclear what happened to the Bacchae children after their parents died. Mariam pulled the same scam with many gullible Greek families. Mr. and Mrs. Panagiotopoulos, for example, were conned into signing their home in Calathea over to Mariam. She then starved them to death inside the monastery. At the time of her arrest, Mariam had amassed 300 homes and farms across the country.

She also had plenty of stolen gold and jewelry, amounting to roughly $155,000 in today's money. The scary part is that Mariam wasn't acting alone. The nuns under her wing were more like a gang. They carried out her orders without question, even when it involved children. One woman tells the story of her 10-year-old niece, who lived at the monastery.

One day, while working in the kitchen, she tried licking a potato to satisfy her hunger. As punishment, the nuns stripped her naked, tied her up in the stable, and left her there through the night. In the morning, they found the girl passed out from the cold. To them, it meant God had forgiven her sins and cleansed her soul.

If one of her nuns dared speak out, they were stripped down to their underwear and beaten with planks. Sometimes, other nuns would lead them into the forest and tie them to a tree. One nun, Sister Mary, unknowingly signed away her property when she joined the convent. One day, she was gathering olives from what she assumed to be her estate. That's when the other nuns jumped and attacked her for trespassing.

They beat her so savagely that Sister Mary died in the hospital hours later. According to reports, Mariam's favorite form of torture, especially regarding children, was to string them up by their feet and beat the evil out of them. She brainwashed the kids into believing they had to die and go to heaven so that others could follow. There were only so many cells inside the monastery.

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Part 3, An American Girl in Greece.

Mother Rasputin's reign of terror continued unabated until 1950, when she messed with the wrong American girl and her family. In 1949, Greek-born Samila Spyrides of Toledo, Ohio, came home after a trip to the Caritea Monastery. According to her father, she gathered $10,000 and flew back to Greece, allegedly donating the money to Mariam Sola-Kiotis,

After a year with no contact, her father finally called the Greek embassy in Ohio to accuse Mariam of luring his daughter into the convent. The FBI got involved and quickly traced Samila to the monastery. Police raided the monastery on December 4th, 1950. Sadly, Samila was nowhere to be found, and it's unclear what happened to her in the end. Instead, police stumbled upon dozens of dying older women and children.

Some were half naked and chained in the cellar. They looked like they hadn't eaten in weeks. They brought the women to the closest hospital. Meanwhile, 36 children in varying conditions were brought to a nearby schoolhouse. As for Mariam, the police couldn't arrest her for torture and murder because everyone inside the monastery was there voluntarily.

They could, however, charge her with the illegal export and import of olive oil. Apparently, Mariam hadn't checked all her boxes while dealing with traders in Cyprus. As days passed and more victims came forward, police got the full picture of what was going on inside Mariam's monastery. Most of the victims were cut from the same cloth. They were wealthy women who Mariam targeted for their money.

but losing their worldly possessions and property was the least of their worries. One woman claimed she was forced to fast for six months. To keep her alive, Mariam and the other nuns fed her olive pits and onion skins. To hydrate, they made her drink her own urine. One man, who was lucky enough to escape, told police that Mariam drugged him and the other victims with opium-rich boiled poppies.

Unable to move, he couldn't fight the nuns as they searched his body and stole the coin purse he had sewn into his clothes. A 15-year-old girl claimed she followed her mother to the monastery. Her mother was starved and tortured to death, and the girl was made to fish in the cold sea at night. Then, for sport, the nuns stuck pins in her legs and injected iodine into her genitals.

According to reports, upwards of 177 men and women died under Mariam's roof. While some were starved and tortured, most died of tuberculosis. They came seeking high-altitude treatment and died penniless, having never seen a doctor. In fact, the only time a doctor was on site was to sign someone's death certificate.

At one point, police believed Mariam and her nuns were responsible for over 500 deaths thanks to their bogus TB treatments. Despite everything, Mariam's defense team had an ironclad case. According to them, those inside her monastery were there voluntarily. Vows of poverty are common in religious circles, thus explaining why these women parted with their wealth without much question.

They only put their property in Mariam's name because she was the only legal person behind the monastery after Matthew died. Finally, Mariam's lawyers showed the court a letter from English Field Marshal Harold Alexander, who thanked Mariam and her nuns for sheltering British soldiers during World War II. They painted her as a selfless woman who risked death to aid the Allies while Greece was under Axis occupation.

Their defense worked at first. In September of 1951, Mariam's initial trial only centered on the illegal imports and exports. She was found guilty and sentenced to 26 months in prison. By then, public pressure had reached its boiling point. Newspapers had already labored her mother Rasputin, and the constant coverage helped other victims come forward.

Mariam was back in court in 1953. This time for the murders of Mr. and Mrs. Baca, Mr. and Mrs. Panagiotopoulos, two nuns, and a woman who died of TB under Mariam's care. She was found guilty and sentenced to 10 years in prison. As the punishment came down, it's said that Mariam sat in silence and never showed any emotion. She simply crossed herself and whispered a prayer of vengeance to St. Matthew.

A third trial found Maryam guilty of illegal detention, earning her another four years in prison. She, however, would only spend about a year behind bars. Maryam died on November 23, 1954, inside Avarof Prison in Athens. There are conflicting reports regarding how old she was, but most people agree that Maryam was 71 when she died.

She professed her innocence to the bitter end, calling the accusations against her "Satanic Fictions". Everything she ever did, she did for God. She went to her grave believing it, and her followers still believe it to this day. Part 4: The Mother's Legacy

As the time of Mother Rasputin's trial and death, old calendarism has been outlawed in Greece. Those still following her and the old calendarist movement did so underground. In the late 50s, Greek authorities were convinced that someone had risen up and taken Mother Rasputin's place. Young girls were vanishing into thin air, and all signs led back to the rebel Kereteia convent.

Whoever was running the show must have been doing so with an iron fist. According to police, the new abscess had perfected the art of making herself and her pseudo-sacred sisters vanish. Over 70 years later, the nuns at the Queretea monastery still revere Mariam Solaquiotis. To them, she's the saint who was slandered for something she didn't do.

During an interview with the Greek magazine Espresso, two of the older nuns said: "This monastery has been mercilessly attacked, but we are not afraid, just as Mariam was not afraid when she was condemned to die in prison for crimes she didn't commit." As of 2024, old calendarism is no longer illegal in Greece. This is thanks to Greece's position as an EU member, which guarantees religious freedom in all member countries.

However, this doesn't give you the freedom to con wealthy women into joining your convent. It doesn't give you the freedom to rob them blind, torture them in the name of God, and starve them to death to free up space. If the 500+ death figure is true, then Mother Rasputin is up there with the most prolific serial killers of all time. To this day, nobody knows why she did it. Was she greedy? Was she sick and twisted in the head?

Or was she so delusional that she truly believed she was doing God's work? As George Carlin famously said, "More people have been killed in the name of God than for any other reason."