The Christian Woman, during the years when Greece was enslaved to the Muslim Turks, in order to avoid as much as she could the abhorrent dishonor from the muslims, would destroy the youthful beauty of her face, or create a family from the age of fourteen, believing that she would not give birth to slaves. The Greek Mother, raised children in the shadows who, when conditions matured, would drive out Islam and the tyrants. In those years when many became crypto-Christians or converted to Islam, many Greek women traversed the "path of Martyrdom." The envy of the Turks for the physical and spiritual beauty and superiority of the Greek women, their lustful disposition, and especially that of the Janissaries, who came from our race through the terrible devshirme (child levy) and thus carried a heavy hatred, was manifested barbarically against the Greek Christian ladies and young women, becoming the occasion or cause of bloody martyrdom. The Greek Orthodox Church has recorded in its ranks new martyrs, virgin-martyrs, and beautiful-martyrs throughout the duration of the Turkish occupation, who were slaughtered and tortured without betraying Greece and their faith until the last moment. Apart from the well-known sacrifice of the Greek women from Souli at Zalongo, who preferred to fall from the cliff with their children in their arms on April 20, 1803, after a four-month siege, the Muslim Turks, having neutralized the resistance at the outposts, entered the Seltsou Monastery. Some were slaughtered or captured, while 250 women and children, in order not to fall into the hands of the Muslim barbarians, jumped into the cliff next to the Holy Monastery of Seltsou in the Valley of the Achelous. Of the approximately 1400 Greeks who arrived at the Holy Monastery in Seltso, only 65 were rescued. The French historian Pouqueville reports: "The phalanx [1148] of the leaders Kitsos and Notis Botsaris, whom i know, marches toward Seltso. Infidelity ali three-month unequal struggle and betrayal follows the sacrifice. The Souliotes without supplies starving besieged want exit or heroic death. 300 swordsmen uncovered sweep everything except Korakou bridge. Notis falls with 5 wounds almost all men are killed. The women fighting shout death. More than two hundred and children jump and drown in the Achelous. Devastation only 10 and Kitsos are saved" [pouqueville 1824 vol. i. pp. 207-212] Pouqueville also refers to the wife of the chieftain Karatasos (from Naousa) who martyred "praying for her executioners and invoking the help of the Virgin," and certifies that: "The Turks murdered the wife of Karatasos and of Zafeirakis, because they did not accept to change faith." But many Greek Christian Women were caught and tortured by the Muslims in order to change their faith and betray the Greek race and Christianity. For example, Maria Karatasou, daughter of a priest, had five children with Anastasios Karatasos. In the slaughter of Naousa, she was taken captive and led to Thessaloniki along with her two daughters and her two younger boys. Along with the horrific tortures they endured, the mother saw one of her sons beheaded and his head thrown demonstratively between her legs. Her other son converted to Islam and later became a pasha in Egypt under the name Karatas Pasha. Her eldest son, Giannakis Karatasos, was killed along with Zafeirakis in Naousa, and the Turks sent their heads as a gift to Ebub Lubut Pasha. Maria refused to change faith, and for this Ebub Lubut enclosed her in a sack with deadly snakes, where she 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…" Shocking is also the testimony of an elderly woman from Poligyros, included in the book "Les Hellenides aux Françaises" (The Greek Women to the French Women), published in 1826 in Paris. This woman had been arrested along with her daughter and imprisoned with one hundred Naousa women in Thessaloniki. They were asked to deny their faith in Christ, and since all refused, they were led to tortures and martyrdom. She herself was present at the tortures of Maria Karatasou, which she describes in the book. We are the descendants of those mothers, of those martyrs, of those heroes, and of those Greeks. - Homer Pavlos