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In 1822, Muslim Turks captured two Greek Christian women in Naousa and attempted to force them to convert to Islam. They smeared them with honey on the head and tied them exposed, so as to receive the stings of wasps and of passersby.

The first woman, wife of captain Zafeirakis,… pic.twitter.com/YIyEZInKi8

— Homer Pavlos (@HomerPavlos) September 15, 2026

In 1822, Muslim Turks captured two Greek Christian women in Naousa and attempted to force them to convert to Islam. They smeared them with honey on the head and tied them exposed, so as to receive the stings of wasps and of passersby.

The first woman, wife of captain Zafeirakis, was then built into the wall up to the neck in the church of Hagia Sophia in Thessaloniki. She was left there for days for the entertainment of the wild mob that went there cursing and hitting her head with sticks as it protruded from the wall. She did not back down for a moment, strengthened until her last breath by prayer, and she never abandoned her Christian faith. Her martyrdom lasted five days. A passing gypsy woman, to hasten her end, threw a large stone at her, and thus the blessed one delivered her heroic soul into the hands of God, Whom she did not deny.

The other woman, Maria, refused to change her faith, and for this Ebub Lubut enclosed her in a sack with deadly snakes, where she was martyred.

The historian Eustathios Stougiannakis writes:

"The acute venom diffused into the veins of the martyr from the bites, however, killed her in sweet lethargy, praying until the last moment for her executioners and invoking the Most High and the Virgin."

And Pouqueville describes in the darkest colors to the civilized world the dramatic scenes he saw with his own eyes there:

"Many women naked were put up to the neck in sacks with cats, snakes, and mice…"

The lifeless bodies of these holy women were eventually thrown into the sea.

These events took place during the Naousa massacre.

13 April 1822

409 Greeks killed and over 400 enslaved.

Homer Pavlos