The Woman Rasputin, Tortured & Murdered 177 Young Women - 1950

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Mariam Soulakiotis, "The Woman Rasputin," Tortured & Murdered 177 Young Women - 1950

Because the study of female criminality attracts only a tiny faction of the funding devoted to the study of crime the number of historical cases of female serial killers that are yet to be discovered is huge and many known cases are still hidden from the wider public. This case is all but unknown outside of Greece.

Miriam Soulakiotis: worse than Charlie Manson; much worse.

Μαριάμ Σουλακιώτου., «Η γυναίκα του Ρασπούτιν," βασάνισε & Δολοφάνησε 177 νέες γυναίκες στα 1950

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FULL TEXT: Athens, Greece – An outlawed order of nuns, which broke away from the Greek Orthodox Church in 1923 and which was held responsible for the death of 177 girls, has gone into hiding and so far all efforts to smash the clandestine group have flopped.

Contrary to the laws of their country, about a hundred women are believed practicing the weird religion of the Calendarist sect which places an exaggerated importance on prayer and punishment. Vowing to catch up with the phony nuns, Greece's ace detectives have found themselves outfoxed up to now.

Snorted a spokesman at the Greek ministry of justice:

"The women are socially dangerous crackpots and have been very clever in giving us the runaround. But one day they'll make a slip, as all criminals usually do, and we will catch them. Those crazy females claim that will someday go to heaven, but if we meet up with them, we’ll show them what hell is like first.”

~ Since 1950 ~

The Calendarists first hit the news columns back in 1950 when their convent’s mother superior, Miriam Soulakiotis (a former factory worker), was arrested on 23 charges that included murder, fraud, embezzlement, abduction and assault. As a result of the shocking revelations made by Prosecting Attorney Andreas Papakaris during the 3 trials needed to cover all the charges, Miss Soulakiotis became known as “The Woman Rasputin.” Sentenced to 16 years, she died in prison in 1954 at the age of 71.

During the sensational proceedings it became known that The Woman Rasputin preached and practiced religious beatings for her followers as the only means of obtaining salvation.

She also duped many of her new recruits into signing over their property to her name since she convinced them this was the best way to get into heaven. Prosecutor Papakarius reported that the abbess amassed a fortune of some $150,000 by embezzling the dowries of Greek women who joined their convent.

~ 177 Deaths. ~

Sworn medical testimony at the trial showed that as a result of the severe penances Mother Miriam imposed, at least 177 known inmates died at “the convent of horrors” in the town of Keratea, 30 miles southeast of Athens. One of these was believed to be an American girl, 22-year-old Ileana Spirides of Toledo, Ohio, who disappeared while on a tourist trip to Athens.

The Calendrist movement had its beginnings in the 16^th century when most Roman Catholic countries adopted the Georgian calendar instead of the old Julian calendar (decreed by Julius Caesar in 46 B.C.), the timing of which was a few minutes off every year.

Although the new calendar spread over Europe, it was not until 1923 that Greece brought itself in line with the rest of the world. This change having induced dissension throughout the Balkan state, one group of Orthodox nuns split with the mother church and set up their own independent order which advocated sticking to the old calendar.

~ New Leader Unknown. ~

Although the Woman Rasputin of the rebel Calendarists has been dead for nearly 8 years, her fanatic followers carry on the work of gathering recruits on the sly. Every month several families report teenagers missing – girls who, before their disappearance, expressed a desire to join the Calendarist movement, even though it’s a crime to belong.

Just exactly who bosses the bizarre colony these days is not known by the police. Whoever she is, she’s a shrewd one who has perfected the art of making herself and her pseudo-sacred sisters vanish into nowhere.

When the law eventually catches up with her, certain it is that Greece will give the Calendarist queen plenty of time to do in stir – time based on the Gregorian calendar, naturally.

[Nino Lo Bello, “Seek Greek Women of  Calendarist Cult,” Cedar Rapids Gazette (Io.), Dec. 31, 1968, p. 7]

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From School for Scoundrels wiki: 

Soulakiotis, Mariam, prom. 1940s-50s, Gr., fraud-embez.-mur. In the early 1920s, a Greek monk, Father Matthew, established a religious sect called the Calendarists and built a convent about thirty miles southeast of Athens, near Keratea. He was aided by a former factory worker, Mariam Soulakiotis, who began to take control of the convent during WWII when Father Matthew was in his eighties. She began sending monks and nuns to recruit wealthy converts, and as they arrived, they were required to confess, fast, go without sleep, pray, maintain silence, and turn over their estates. New converts who did not adhere to these policies were beaten and other members were regularly punished.

In about 1949, local villagers began to gossip about screams coming from the convent and in early 1950, the daughter of one convert contacted the Athens prosecutor, and charged that Soulakiotis had forced her mother to sign over her estate. After investigating, the prosecutor discovered that about 500 recruits had left their estates to the convent and then died.

In December 1950, Soulakiotis was arrested and in September 1951, she was tried on charges of unlawfully confining a girl in the convent for twelve years. The child, placed in the convent in 1938, had been told she was an orphan and her father had been told that she had died. Soulakiotis was convicted, and sentenced to twenty-six months in prison. A nun was also convicted as an accomplice and was sentenced to four months in prison. About a year later, in 1952, Soulakiotis, eight nuns, and a phony bishop were tried on charges of withholding food and medical treatment from a monk and three nuns, causing their deaths and obtaining their estates by fraud. On Feb. 6, 1953, Soulakiotis was sentenced to ten years in prison, a nun received a ten-year sentence, another nun was given a three-year sentence, and the fake bishop received a year in prison. Soulakiotis was again brought to trial on charges of embezzlement, fraud, and illegal detention and abuse of a convent member. On Nov. 18, 1953, she was given another four-year term, to be served concurrently with the prior sentence.

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http://unknownmisandry.blogspot.gr/2011/12/greek-serial-killer-cult-leader-mariam.html
[Source of Soulakiotis photo:[“Nuns Charged With Abduction,” The Mercury (Hobart, Tasmania), Jan. 25, 1951, p. 5]