On the night of October 2nd into October 3rd of 1588, during an all-night vigil in honor of the patron saint of Athens, Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, in the Metochion of the Holy Apostle Andrew in Patisia, five Turks on their horses entered the church, vandalizing the sacred place. The nuns in a panic ran away to hide. The Turks let them run away, they didn't care. All they wanted was Philothei Benizelou. Her crime: she offered asylum to Christian women fleeing their Turkish masters to preserve their faith and chastity. Philothei courageously stood up, and the Turks grabbed her with force and knocked her down to the floor. They kicked her, beat her with clubs and after binding her to a column they whipped her without mercy. Thinking that they killed her, they then fled. The nuns came to her aid. She was then taken to the Metochion of the Entrance of the Theotokos in Perissos, where a few months later, on 19 February 1589, she died from her injuries. Today the church where she was martyred still stands along with the column she was bound to and beaten.
