Vampires and Vampirism Resource Page

How A Certain Monk Was Restored From Excommunication After His Death

 

The Grave Robber and the Living Dead Girl

 

A Case of Vampirism in the Lives of the Saints?

 

Saint Dionysios of Zakynthos and the Dead Woman Under Excommunication

 

A Case of Vampirism in the Life of Saint Dionysios of Zakynthos 

 

St. Kosmas the Aitolos on the Devil 

 

St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite on Vampirism 

 

On the Belief in Vampires in Greece During the Ottoman Occupation (An Essay From 1844)

The Exhumation of a Vampire on the Island of Mykonos in 1700: An Eye-Witness Account

 

The Vampires of Santorini

 

The Vampire of the Greek Island of Lesvos  

 

The Chapel of Saint George the Vampire in Thymari of Argolis

 

How Lord Byron's Trip to Greece Brought the Modern Vampire to the West

 

Frankenstein And The Vampyre - A Dark and Stormy Night (Documentary) 

 

"On Those Who Burn Vampires" (A Greek Orthodox Christian Manual from 1867) 

 

Experiences With Greek Vampires (An Account from 1899)

 

Alexandros Papadiamantis and Bram Stoker's "Dracula" 

A Modern Greek Vampire Tale 

 

"The Vroucolacas: A Tale" by James K. Paulding (full text)

 

The Authenticity of an Eerie 1932 Photograph from Mount Athos of Two Dead Excommunicated Monks  

 

Heretics as Vampires and Demons in Russia  

 

Christian Serbia Maintains Its Faith In Folklore

 

Vampire Fears Boost Garlic Sales in Serbian Village

 

'Vampire' Graves Discovered at Bulgarian Monastery 

 

How the Prolific Serial Killer Countess Elizabeth Bathory Fits Into a Feast of the Orthodox Church

 

Saint George and the Powers of Witches and Vampires   

 

The Feast of Saint Andrew in Romania - Night of the Vampires

 

November 29-30 is Romania's Halloween  

Vlad the Impaler as Romanians See Him

 

Dracula Was A Victim Of Bad Propaganda

 

Dracula’s Cellar Found 

 

Saint Stephen the Great, Prince of Moldavia (+ 1504) 

 

Real Stories of Vampires from Transylvania

 

Bram Stoker on Christ and Fiction Writing  

An Image of Death's Relentless Approach

 

The Movie "Bram Stoker's Dracula": Interesting Facts for Orthodox Christians

 

An Interesting Comment by Francis Ford Coppola on Orthodox Christianity 

Movie: "Dracula In Istanbul" (1953)

 

Horror Movies and the Cross - Five Favorite Scenes Displaying the Power of the Cross  

Movie Review: "Let the Right One In" (2008)

 

Trailer: "Strigoi" (2009)

 

Trailer for "Vampir", a New Film Inspired By 18th Century Serbian Vampire Tales

 

Book Review: "The Undead and Theology"

 

Video: Draculas, Vampires and Popular Culture

 

Vampires and Religion in Popular Culture  

 

Joseph Laycock: Vampires and "Twilight"

How Lord Byron's Trip to Greece Brought the Modern Vampire to the West

When Lord Byron was 21 years old, he decided to undertake the customary upper class Grand Tour. The Grand Tour was the 17th- and 18th-century custom of a traditional trip through Europe undertaken by upper-class young European men of sufficient means and rank (typically accompanied by a chaperone, such as a family member) when they had come of age (about 21 years old). Byron, who studied ancient Greek and the history of Greece, longed to see Greece and Constantinople, and thus made these the special focus of his Grand Tour.

It was in Greece during Lord Byron's Grand Tour, between 1809 and 1810, that he was told several local myths and legends. While in Athens, he became aware of the Turkish custom of throwing a woman found guilty of adultery into the sea wrapped in a sack. This inspired him to write The Giaour, the first of his three oriental tales.

Trailer for "Vampir", a New Film Inspired By 18th Century Serbian Vampire Tales

Vampir (2021) is a soon to be released art house horror film directed by Branko Tomovic.

According to the description: "The story takes place in rural central Serbia, where the myth about vampires originates from. After witnessing a crime in London and looking for a place to hide for a while, Arnaut is offered a job by charming yet ruthless local Vesna to look after a cemetery in a small remote village in Serbia. He soon starts to have nightmarish visions and is frequently visited by the mysterious older woman Baba Draga who guides Arnaut into the darkness. Only the village priest seems to be trying to keep him safe from the sinister intentions of the villagers."

St. Kosmas the Aitolos on Vampirism and the Devil

 

 

When we hear the word "devil", it is he who was once the first among angels; it is he who moves people to pride, to murder, to theft; it is he who enters into a dead person, causing him to appear living, and we call him a vrykolakas.*

 

    - St. Kosmas the Aitolos (First Teaching) 

 

* A vrykolakas is the Greek equivalent to the traditional vampire of European folklore, and was a commonly accepted reality among the Greek population of the 18th century, especially in rural areas. It should be noted that this word is falsely translated as "ghost" in English translations of this First Teaching of St. Kosmas.

"On Those Who Burn Vampires" (A Greek Orthodox Christian Manual from 1867)

 

 

In 1867 a popular 82 page manual for Greek Orthodox Priests was published to aid them in the administration of Holy Confession. This book was called Nomocanon: Various Prayers and Discourses (Νομοκανονικό. Εὐχὲς καὶ λόγοι διάφοροι), and it can be found in many old libraries of Greek monasteries and seminaries. On pages 67-69 there is advice on how a Priest ought to deal with those who burn vampires, with the section titled "On Those Who Burn Vampires" ("Περί των καιόντων τους Βουρκολάκους"). In Greek, a vampire is known as a "vrykolakas", though there are various spellings and pronunciations in Greek, and a Greek vampire may have certain characteristics not familiar to other vampires of folklore from other countries. For the author of this text, vampires were real. The issue was not that people believed in vampires; vampires obviously existed. The issue for spiritual fathers was how to deal with those who burned their undead bodies. Here is an excerpt from this chapter:

The Authenticity of an Eerie 1932 Photograph from Mount Athos of Two Dead Excommunicated Monks

By John Sanidopoulos

In the monasteries of Mount Athos, when a monk dies, they are buried for three years until they are completely decomposed, then when only their bones are left bare they are placed in an ossuary to be stored with the bones of the other monks of the monastery. It is believed that a monk who lived a righteous life will decompose in three years, but if they are not decomposed then they are reburied and prayed over that their decomposition will soon come to pass, for it could indicate that there was a more nefarious reason behind the lack of decomposition.

A Case of Vampirism in the Life of Saint Dionysios of Zakynthos

The following story is one we often encounter in stories that take place in Greece during the Turkish occupation - a sinner who is excommunicated cannot decompose and find rest in the afterlife unless they are pardoned and the excommunication is lifted. In the story we are not told why the body was exhumed. It is probably because people believed the excommunicated woman was a vrykolakas, which is a Greek equivalent of a vampire, an excommunicant who was believed to rise out of the grave at night and haunt people.

Saint Dionysios of Zakynthos and the 

Dead Woman Under Excommunication

One one occasion, when Saint Dionysios found himself in the city, a funeral was being conducted in the cemetery of the Church of Saint Nicholas of the Strangers. The church was named this way because many strangers were buried in that plot of land. This church was also the Metropolitan Cathedral of Zakynthos. It happened that the people opened a certain grave, so that they might bury someone else inside. There they discovered a woman who had long been dead, but whose body and clothing had not decomposed. The reason for this was because this wretched woman had died under the ban of excommunication.

"The Vroucolacas: A Tale" by James K. Paulding (full text)

James Kirke Paulding (August 22, 1778 – April 6, 1860) was an American writer and, for a time, the United States Secretary of the Navy. He was born in Pleasant Valley, New York and largely self-educated. He became a close friend of Washington Irving, with whom he began a periodical. The result was Salmagundi; a short-lived satirical periodical, from which the word 'Gotham' was first ascribed as a name for New York City. After writing many other things, in June 1846 he published "The Vroucolacas: A Tale" in Graham's American Monthly Magazine of Literature and Art out of Philadelphia. This is among the earliest American tales influenced directly from true accounts of Greek vampire tales, half a century before the publishing of Bram Stoker's Dracula. He died at his farm near Hyde Park, New York. He is interred at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.

On the Belief in Vampires in Greece During the Ottoman Occupation (An Essay From 1844)

The Vroucalaca

(Published in The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction 

on Saturday, February 24, 1844)

The Vampire, of which so much has been written, is the descendant of the Vroucalaca of Modern Greece. It is astonishing to what a height of absurdity ignorance, aided by superstition, has arrived. Tournefort relates, that in all the Archipelago the people firmly believed that it was only in the Greek church that excommunication preserved the body entire and unputrified. Some ascribed it to the force of the bishop's sentence — others thought that the devil entered into the body of the excommunicate, and reanimated him, so that he became an evil spirit incarnate. There was a prevalent superstition that the dead ate and drank in their graves, that they devoured their own flesh and burial-clothes for want of better food, and that all the viands and wine placed on the bier, and in fact consumed by the priests, were really the nourishment of the dead. From this point an easy transition would lead the excited dupes to believe in the demoniacal and hungry corpse sallying forth from the tomb, and satisfying at once its malignity and its appetite by preying on the flesh and blood of the living. Tournefort was present at the exhumation, impalement, and burning of a Vroucolaca in the island of Mycone, who was reported to have broken the windows and the bones, and drained the bottles and the veins of half the inhabitants of the island. For many days the people were in continual consternation, and numbers left their abodes and the island — masses were said – holy water showered about in torrents — the nine days were passed, and still the Vroucolaca was every night at fresh mischief — the tenth day mass was said in the chapel where the unfortunate corpse lay — but without avail, owing, as the priests afterwards pretended to discover, to the negligence of not extracting the heart before the expulsory mass was said. Had the heart been first extracted and a mass instantly said, before the devil could have returned into possession, the people were convinced his Infernal Majesty's entry would have been barred, and the nuisance put an end to. The corpse was then exhumed, the town butcher took out the heart, and declared that the entrails were still warm. The putrid stench of the corpse obliged them to burn frankincense, which produced an amalgamation of fumes that laid hold of the people's senses, and helped to inflame their imaginations. "Vroucolaca! Vroucolaca!" echoed through the cloisters and aisles. The corpse was assailed with swords in all directions, till a learned Albanian appeared and told the people they were all fools for using Christian swords, since the cross of the hilt had the effect of pinning the demon more firmly in the body, instead of expelling him, and that the only sword for the purpose was the straight Turkish scymetar. The people would not wait for the experiment, but, with one accord, determined on burning the body entire. This was accordingly done on the point of the island of St George; and the people then defied the devil to find a niche in which to quarter himself, and made songs in celebration of their triumph.

The Exhumation of a Vampire on the Island of Mykonos in 1700: An Eye-Witness Account

Joseph Pitton de Tournefort (1656–1708) was a French botanist, notable as the first to make a clear definition of the concept of genus for plants. Between 1700 and 1702 he traveled through the islands of Greece and visited Constantinople, the borders of the Black Sea, Armenia, and Georgia, collecting plants and undertaking other types of observations. He was accompanied by the German botanist Andreas Gundelsheimer (1668–1715) and the artist Claude Aubriet (1651–1742). His description of this journey was published posthumously in 1718 as Relation d'un voyage du Levant (A Voyage Into The Levant), he himself having been killed by a carriage in Paris; the road on which he died now bears his name (Rue de Tournefort in the 5ème arrondissement). It was during this journey that he became an eye-witness to what locals on the island of Mykonos believed to be the exhumation of a vampire, or a Vroucolacas as it was called there. Below is how he described it, and his attempt to stop this superstitious practice.

How the Prolific Serial Killer Countess Elizabeth Bathory Fits Into a Feast of the Orthodox Church

Portrait of Countess Elizabeth Bathory

In August of 1581 the Russian city of Pskov was held under siege by the Polish king. On August 27th of that year the Virgin Mary appeared in a vision to a holy elder and blacksmith named Dorotheus, and she informed him that the siege was taking place due to the sins of the people of Pskov. When he interceded on behalf of the city, and the people repented and processed a miraculous icon of the Holy Virgin along the city wall for the days leading up to the battle, the Mother of God forgave the people and protected the city from the invading Polish king. To commemorate this event and the deliverance of the city, an icon was painted called the Pskov-Pechersk Icon, and to honor her Protection over the city, the feast was established for October 1st, which is the feast of the Protection of the Mother of God.

Saint George and the Powers of Witches and Vampires

“It is the eve of St. George’s Day. Do you not know that tonight, when the clock strikes midnight, all the evil things in the world will have full sway? Do you know where you are going, and what you are going to?”

―Bram Stoker, Dracula 1897

Today is the Eve of the Feast of Saint George! Which means that if you are still alive after tonight, you survived what is known in Eastern Europe as the most dangerous night of the year, as the powers of vampires and witches and every evil were at their height on the Eve of the Feast of Saint George.

The Chapel of Saint George the Vampire in Thymari of Argolis

Alan John Bayard Wace (13 July 1879 in Cambridge, England – 9 November 1957, in Athens, Greece) was an English archaeologist. He was educated at Shrewsbury School and Pembroke College, Cambridge. He was director of the British School at Athens (1914-1923), Deputy Keeper in the Department of Textiles in the Victoria and Albert Museum (1924-1934), the second Laurence Professor of Classical Archaeology at University of Cambridge (1934-1944) and professor at the Farouk I University in Egypt (1943-1952). Among Wace's field projects were those at Sparta, Mycenae, Troy, Thessaly, Corinth, and Alexandria. Along with Carl Blegen, Wace carried out important work on the decipherment of Linear B tablets.

Click on text to enlarge.

The Feast of Saint Andrew in Romania - Night of the Vampires

Saint Andrew, the patron saint of Romania, is seen by Romanians as the Apostle who Christianized the lands north of the Danube, and according to tradition it is said he spent twenty years evangelizing the pagans of this area. There are many traditions without religious meaning connected to the feast day of Saint Andrew on November 30th, some of them having their origin in the Roman celebrations of Saturn. The Dacian New Year took place from the 14th of November until the 7th of December and this was the interval when time began its course.

How A Certain Monk Was Restored From Excommunication After His Death

By John Moschos

(The Spiritual Meadow, Ch. 192)

The Story of a Certain Monk of the Monastery of the Divine Pope Gregory (590-604), How He Was Restored From Excommunication After His Death.

A holy presbyter from Rome called Peter told us a story about the most blessed Gregory, Bishop of that city. During his time of being Pontifex Maximus, he greatly edified a monastery of men by giving them a rule that they should not possess any money, not even a single obolus. Now, one of the brothers of the monastery made a request to his brother living in the world.

A Case of Vampirism in the Lives of the Saints?

By John Sanidopoulos

The English author and clergyman Montague Summers published a heavily researched book on vampires in 1928 titled The Vampire, His Kith and Kin. In the second chapter he goes into some detail about the history of excommunication, and the belief of many, especially among simple-minded Orthodox Christians, as to how this contributes to a curse especially seen after death that results in the folkloric belief in vampirism, where the body of the excommunicated deceased may show signs of foul incorruption and an undead state. The activities of these vampire-like beings, known among the Greeks as vrykolakas, are said to nearly always be harmful, verging from merely leaving their grave and "roaming about", through engaging in poltergeist-like activity, and up to causing epidemics in the community. Among other things, the creature is believed to knock on the doors of houses and call out the name of the residents. If it gets no reply the first time, it will pass without causing any harm. If someone does answer the door, he or she will die a few days later and become another vrykolakas. For this reason, there is a superstition present in certain Greek villages that one should not answer a door until the second knock. Legends also say that the vrykolakas crushes or suffocates the sleeping by sitting on them, much like a mara or incubus (cf. sleep paralysis) — as does a vampire in Bulgarian folklore.

Experiences With Greek Vampires (An Account from 1899)

JOHN ROBERT SITLINGTON STERRETT (1851-1914) was an American archaeologist, a Classical scholar, and a professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. He traveled extensively throughout Greece, Turkey, and the Near East (including the famed 1907-08 Cornell Expedition to Asia Minor and the Assyro-Babylonian Orient) to explore Classical history. He also made some pioneering efforts in Hittite studies. On one of his travels to Greece, Sterrett came across the folk belief in vampires, which he, following other authorities, saw as a degraded echo of Classical mythology. In August 1899, he published the following account of his experiences with Greek vampires in The Nation.

By J. R. S. Sterrett

Amherst, August, 1899

Some years ago the writer, accompanied by a friend, was travelling on foot in Greece. One day, after sunset, we reached an isolated farmhouse, situated on the edge of what was then the great Copaic morass, immediately north of Orchomenus. We had been tramping through Greece for seven weeks; we were very footsore, and a long walk had made us unusually tired and hungry on that particular day. As we approached the house, we were greeted by the barking of a huge, and apparently very savage, dog, who made frantic efforts to break his chain in order to gratify his burning curiosity In regard to the two forlorn travellers. Had we known what was to follow, the dog would have inspired us with more respect, but we had seen many Grecian curs masquerading as lions, though at heart they were as cowardly as hares. So, trusting to knowledge born of experience with other dogs, we scarcely deigned to notice the vigorous protests of this savage beast. Arrived at the door of the farmhouse, we knocked once and again. Apparently the house had no Inmate. But after a time the door opened cautiously, and a burly Albanian peasant appeared in the doorway extending towards us a pair of tongs in which was held a live coal of fire. The extraordinary performance rendered us for the moment speechless with astonishment. The peasant, pale and apparently quivering with terror, stood but for a moment holding the coal of fire towards us. Then, without having uttered one word, be hastily closed the door in our faces and bolted it with care.

Heretics as Vampires and Demons in Russia

Title: "Heretics as Vampires and Demons in Russia"

Author: Felix J. Oinas

Source: The Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 22, No. 4, (Winter, 1978), pp. 433-441

Published by: American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages

In English, heretic (Greek hairetikos "able to choose") means "a person who professes any heresy; especially, a church member who holds beliefs opposed to the official church doctrines."' The meaning of the word eretik, "heretic" in Russian is basically the same: "the follower of heresy, a person who deviates from the dogmas of the predominating church." The question regarding the Old Believers is not clear: some do and others do not include them as heretics.2 Primarily in the Russian north, "heretics "have developed into a heterogeneous group of sorcerers, witches, and vampires called eretik, eretnik, eretica, eretnica, erestun, and others. Zelenin includes heretics (eretnik) among sorcerers (Zauberer) and remarks that they do not belong to evil forces and do not have tails.3

A Modern Greek Vampire Tale

Greeks believed that a human could become a Vrykolakas after death by having lived an ungodly life, being buried on unconsecrated ground, being excommunicated or by having eaten the meat of a lamb that had been injured or killed by a wolf. Some Greek legends insinuate that even a werewolf could become one of the Vrykolakas upon it’s death. Individuals that had red hair and grey eyes were suspected of having been one of the undead, which is intriguing as other ancient vampire lore states that any vampire with red hair was a direct descendant of Judas Iscariot’s cursed blood line.

The Vampire of the Greek Island of Lesvos

Rusted iron spikes pierce the neck, pelvis, and ankle of this skeleton, found in a Turkish cemetery on the Greek island of Lesbos (Hector Williams)

Eight-inch iron spikes nail down the identification of a 19th-century vampire burial near Mytilene.

By Hector Williams

The well-preserved skeleton of a middle-aged man, nailed to his coffin with eight-inch iron spikes, has been found in a 19th-century Turkish cemetery near the north harbor of Mytilene, the principal city of the Greek island of Lesbos (or Lesvos). Researchers from the University of British Columbia and the Tenth Ephoreia of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities discovered the skeleton in a stone-lined crypt hollowed out of an ancient city wall. They had been excavating on a government owned plot in a study of Mytilenean archaeology. The man had been nailed through his neck, pelvis, and ankle. According to 18th- and 19th-century travelers, suspected vampires were nailed to their caskets to keep them from rising from the dead. That a Moslem would be buried this way is of particular interest since such burials were predominantly a Christian practice.

Source: This news brief first appeared in ARCHAEOLOGY, March/April 1994, p. 22.