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Mariam Soulakiotis: Greece's 'Killer Nun' of Keratea

Jun 5
3 min read

Updated: 5 days ago

Mariam Soulakiotis, the abbess of a monastery near Keratea, Greece, is one of the most unsettling — and most disputed — figures ever to appear on lists of the world's most prolific killers. Convicted in connection with a large number of deaths inside her religious community, most of them attributed to starvation, neglect and the denial of medical care, she remains a deeply contested case. To prosecutors and much of the press she was a predator who hid behind religion; to a community of followers she was an innocent woman, even a saint. This account lays out what the records and trials alleged while noting clearly where the facts are genuinely disputed.

Mariam Soulakiotis: Greece's 'Killer Nun' of Keratea

That ambiguity is not a weakness of the story but its essence: historical true crime often reaches us through competing, incomplete, and passionately defended accounts, and Soulakiotis is a prime example.

From Marina to 'Mother Mariam'

She was born Marina Soulakiotou around 1883 in Keratea, into a poor family, and reportedly worked in farming and factory labour in her youth. As a young woman she became closely associated with the Greek Old Calendarist movement and the monk later known as Bishop Matthew of Vresthena, a leading figure among the Matthewite Old Calendarists who rejected the reformed church calendar. Within that movement she rose to lead the Panagia Pefkovounogiatrissa Monastery, the 'Monastery of the Virgin of the Pines', becoming known to her followers as Mother Mariam of Keratea.

Life inside the monastery

According to later testimony and investigations, life inside the convent was governed by extreme asceticism. Residents — including many young women and children — were said to be subjected to severe fasting, harsh discipline, confinement and, in the worst accounts, beatings and the withholding of food and medical treatment. Tuberculosis spread through the crowded, under-nourished conditions, and a significant number of residents, including children, are reported to have died as a result.

A financial motive

Investigators and prosecutors alleged a financial motive beneath the religious austerity. The accusation was that Soulakiotis encouraged women — especially those with money — to enter the monastery and to sign over their property and wills, after which their wealth was absorbed by the institution or by the abbess personally. Authorities later catalogued a striking quantity of property deeds, wills, cash and valuables connected to the community, lending weight to the claim that devotion was being turned into profit.

The police raid

The case broke into the open in December 1950, when police searched the monastery. Accounts describe officers documenting confined and malnourished residents, hundreds of property documents, and the removal of dozens of children into protective custody. Reports of shallow graves near the grounds and subsequent exhumations followed, fuelling a far wider investigation into deaths over the previous two decades and turning a religious community into the centre of a national scandal.

Charges, trials and a disputed toll

In early 1951 Soulakiotis was indicted on charges that reportedly included homicide, fraud, forgery of wills, blackmail and torture, and over a series of trials she was convicted on multiple counts, with reported sentences varying widely across sources. The number of deaths attributed to her is genuinely disputed and should be treated with caution: medical testimony at trial pointed to a relatively small number of direct killings alongside a much larger number of deaths from neglect and tuberculosis, while the press circulated far higher totals, including the figure of 177 that places her so high on victim-count lists. These numbers come from very different sources and standards of proof, which is exactly why historians treat them as contested.

A case still argued over

Soulakiotis died in Averoff Prison in 1954, still insisting on her innocence. Decades later, the case has not fully closed in the public mind. The monastery she once led has continued, and some within the Old Calendarist tradition regard her as wrongly accused, even venerating her memory, while mainstream accounts treat her as a convicted serial killer whose religious authority shielded extraordinary abuse.

What makes the Soulakiotis case endure is precisely this tension between competing truths. It sits at the intersection of religion, money, institutional power and the vulnerability of people who entrust themselves to a closed community. Whatever the true death toll, it stands as a warning about what can happen when an institution operates beyond outside scrutiny — and as a reminder to weigh historical claims carefully rather than simply repeating the most dramatic figure.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was Mariam Soulakiotis?

A Greek Orthodox abbess of a monastery near Keratea, convicted in a case linked to numerous deaths from neglect, starvation and abuse.

How many deaths was she blamed for?

Figures are disputed: trial testimony cited a smaller number of direct killings plus around 150 deaths from neglect and tuberculosis, while the press cited up to 177.