Anna Nobili, 38, spent years working as an exotic dancer and striptease artist at Milan night clubs but now she's a Catholic nun who describes herself a "ballerina for God".
The Daily Mail reports that Sr Anna Nobili, a lap dancer turned nun is to perform a religious dance in front of an audience of Catholic cardinals and bishops.
She swapped string bikinis and high heels for a nun's habit after a visit to the shrine of St Francis in Assisi, a place of pilgrimage for millions of Catholics in Umbria, in 2002.
Sr Anna, as she became, joined an order of nuns called the Sister Workers of the Holy House of Nazareth.
"I am like St Paul who was converted on the road to Damascus," she said according to the UK Telegraph.
"I really liked my old life. I was at the centre of looks but then I realised I was throwing my life, my body and my sexuality away.
"The nights were dark, they were filled with evil, with sex and with drugs.
"Then one day I went to Assisi and I was struck by how beautiful the sky was.
"I saw something fluorescent within the clouds, a cascade of colour and I felt the presence of God, the Creator.
"I started dancing and people were looking at me, I got on the train back to Milan and I felt as if God was in me.
"It was such an emotional moment, when I looked at myself in the train toilet mirror I didn't recognise myself.
"It was a transfiguration, I danced in the club one more night and the men were just looking at me, trying to take me to bed and I knew that was my goodbye.
"I called my boss and I said to him I found a new clean treasure and it was God."
"But now my life has changed, I have been reborn. I have never given up dancing but now I dance for God.
Now she says she has been reborn by her faith in God and practises a form of "mystical" choreography which she calls "Holy Dance".
SOURCE
'Lap dancing nun' to perform for cardinals and bishops (UK Telegraph)
Like a prayer: The Italian nun who spent 20 years as a lapdancer (Daily Mail)
LINKS
Sister Anna dances (YouTube)