Re: Vampires in Christianity
Vampire lore while having been around from the hellenic period, got it's christian flavor during the Rule of Vlad Tepes of Wallachia or Vlad the impaler, son of Vlad Dracul. Vlad Tepes was the thorn in the side of Sultan Mehmed who saw the horrors that Vlad Tepes unleashed on the Ottoman outposts in occupied lands of the balkans. Vlad the impaler was not only incredibly cruel to the ottoman forces, he once had an ottoman emmisary's helmet nailed to his head because he refused to prostrate and take it off infront of him. :)
WHile he was reviled by his own people and the ottomans for the atrocities committed healso had a legion of fans who saw him as a liberator against the ottoman machine. Legend has it that he was killed by the Janissaries, the private militia of the Sultan, and beheaded. His body was buried in Lake Snagov monstary in Romania or Svet Gorgi monstary in Bulgaria...and his head still waiting to be united and thus he is the undead. Since the monks of the era were the sole proprietors of knowledge for the masses, the links to christianity obviously developed.
Now go and close this thread...your lesson is over.