The blessed nun Irene, more famously known by her secular name Vasiliki Rallis, has reposed at the age of 100, as of this past Monday on the 5th of December 2022, at around 8:00 am. This took place at the Sacred Monastery of Panagia Eleousa in Patras. Her funeral took place on December 6th.
Vasiliki was born in Thermi on the island of Lesvos, a few months after the Asia Minor Catastrophe. Her family was from Moschonisi (Cunda Island) of Asia Minor. Her father, Nicholas Maragos, was imprisoned, while her pregnant mother went to Lesvos as a refugee, escaping as if by a miracle from the massacre, in that tragic September of 1922. They crossed to the hospitable coast of Lesvos and settled in the area of Thermi, where she was born on January 28, 1923. In Mytilene she received her general education, in the Girls' High School and the French School of the time. Over time, she married Angelo Rallis and had two daughters and one grandchild named Panagiotis.
In 1959, she decided to fulfill her mother's wish and to rebuild the dilapidated Church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos, on the hill of Karyes. This was the occasion for the subsequent revelation of this sanctified location, where Saints Raphael, Nicholas and Irene and their companions lived and were martyred and were buried more than 500 years earlier, whose entire history was lost to time. Vasiliki was the first, along with other residents of Thermi and the wider area, to become a vessel of choice, for which they received the shocking divine revelations of the Holy Martyrs! What Vasiliki and other locals saw in their blessed dreams and what they said was amazingly confirmed by the shovel of the excavations in 1962!
From an early age, Vasiliki took her first steps as a writer in the field of Poetry and Literature, with the special characteristics of nostalgic love and pain for the Motherland, as well as her strong faith and reverence for God and His Saints. Among her works: "Karyes, the Hill of the Saints", "Homeland Unforgettable Asia Minor", "Penelope", "The Refugee" and the poetry collection "Echo of the Soul". Her work "Karyes, the Hill of the Saints", is an experiential account of the apparitions of the Newly-Revealed Saints Raphael, Nicholas and Irene (or Rinoula, as Vasiliki used to call her) and their companions who were martyred on the hill of Karyes in Lesvos, in the olive grove owned by the couple Angelo and Vasiliki Rallis.
In her final years, Vasiliki lived in Patras, initially at the home of one of her daughters, Mrs. Angeliki Rallis, Professor of Linguistics at the University of Patras, as well as at the Sacred Monastery of Panagia Eleousa of Patras from 2009, where by Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Patras, on February 4, 2022, Vasiliki was tonsured a nun and received the name of her Saint Rinoula, as Saint Raphael had predicted to her in one of her visions! She chose to live her remaining years in Patras to be near her daughter. May her memory be eternal!
Vasiliki was born in Thermi on the island of Lesvos, a few months after the Asia Minor Catastrophe. Her family was from Moschonisi (Cunda Island) of Asia Minor. Her father, Nicholas Maragos, was imprisoned, while her pregnant mother went to Lesvos as a refugee, escaping as if by a miracle from the massacre, in that tragic September of 1922. They crossed to the hospitable coast of Lesvos and settled in the area of Thermi, where she was born on January 28, 1923. In Mytilene she received her general education, in the Girls' High School and the French School of the time. Over time, she married Angelo Rallis and had two daughters and one grandchild named Panagiotis.
In 1959, she decided to fulfill her mother's wish and to rebuild the dilapidated Church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos, on the hill of Karyes. This was the occasion for the subsequent revelation of this sanctified location, where Saints Raphael, Nicholas and Irene and their companions lived and were martyred and were buried more than 500 years earlier, whose entire history was lost to time. Vasiliki was the first, along with other residents of Thermi and the wider area, to become a vessel of choice, for which they received the shocking divine revelations of the Holy Martyrs! What Vasiliki and other locals saw in their blessed dreams and what they said was amazingly confirmed by the shovel of the excavations in 1962!
From an early age, Vasiliki took her first steps as a writer in the field of Poetry and Literature, with the special characteristics of nostalgic love and pain for the Motherland, as well as her strong faith and reverence for God and His Saints. Among her works: "Karyes, the Hill of the Saints", "Homeland Unforgettable Asia Minor", "Penelope", "The Refugee" and the poetry collection "Echo of the Soul". Her work "Karyes, the Hill of the Saints", is an experiential account of the apparitions of the Newly-Revealed Saints Raphael, Nicholas and Irene (or Rinoula, as Vasiliki used to call her) and their companions who were martyred on the hill of Karyes in Lesvos, in the olive grove owned by the couple Angelo and Vasiliki Rallis.
In her final years, Vasiliki lived in Patras, initially at the home of one of her daughters, Mrs. Angeliki Rallis, Professor of Linguistics at the University of Patras, as well as at the Sacred Monastery of Panagia Eleousa of Patras from 2009, where by Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Patras, on February 4, 2022, Vasiliki was tonsured a nun and received the name of her Saint Rinoula, as Saint Raphael had predicted to her in one of her visions! She chose to live her remaining years in Patras to be near her daughter. May her memory be eternal!
 |
| Nun Irene with her two daughters, Niki (left) and Angeliki (right) and her son-in-law Stratis Hatzipanagiotis |
 |
| Nun Irene with Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Patras and Abbess Makaria |
 |
| The tonsuring of Nun Irene |
