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St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite On
Vampirism
Canon 66 of St. Basil the Great
A grave-robber shall remain excluded from Communion for ten
years.
Footnote By St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite
It is fitting that we add in the present footnote how great
condemnation those priests or laymen
deserve who open graves in order to find, as they say, the
Vrykolakas*, as they call them, and put them
to death.
Oh, to what a wretched condition and lack of knowledge
present-day Christians have reached! Christianbrethren, what
delusions are those you have? What foolish and infantile imaginings
are those in which
you believe? What mockeries are those with which the demons
separate you from an implicit belief in
God, and make sport of you like silly children?
I tell you and I inform you with every assurance that Vrykolakas
never occur, nor are there any in the
world. Vrykolakas, as you call them, are nothing else than a
false and childish prejudice born of your fear
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and unbelief; and they are a silly notion which fools you and
tells you that the dead rise out of their
tombs and come forth and trouble you. There are no Vrykolakas,
because it is impossible for the Devil
ever to raise a dead person and to make a corpse that has been
dead a month or two have blood, or
finger nails, or any bodily movement or motion, such as you
imagine.
Vrykolakas are a silly notion, because, if one examines
carefully those who claim to have seen
Vrykolakas, he will find that after saying that someone else
told them about it they finally come to
believe that they themselves have seen them. That is my
impression from having many times and in
many places investigated the facts. Hence, my brethren, when you
learn these, dismiss any such
prejudice and imagination from your thought, and henceforth
believe not that there are any such things
as Vrykolakas in reality.
If, as a result of your paucity of belief in God the Devil ever
obsesses you with any such imaginations, tell
the priest to chant an Hagiasmo, or Sanctification Service, in
that place, and through divine grace the
activity of the demons will be terminated.
As for any persons that dare to open graves in order to strike
or mangle a corpse, or to burn it, for the
alleged purpose of putting to death with that blow or of burning
the Vrykolakas, they ought to be
canonized by the prelate not only as grave-robbers, but also as
murderers. What am I saying? Why, such
persons ought to be prohibited under severe penalties by the
prelate from daring in the beginning even
to open at all the graves of suspected dead persons.
See also divine Chrysostom (Homily 2 "On Lazarus and the Rich
Man"), how he reproves those silly
persons who believe that demons actually are in existence, which
is the same as saying, the souls of
those who have been murdered, or have been hanged, or have met a
violent death. For he tells them
that the souls of such persons do not become demons or
Vrykolakas, but rather do those Christians who
live in sins and who imitate the wickedness of the demons.
See also page 992 of the second volume of the Conciliar Records,
where it is stated to have been a belief
of the heresy of the Bogomils that demons inhabit bodies.
* Vrykolakas (Greek , pronounced/vrikolakas/), variant
vorvolakas or vurdulakas, is a
harmful undead creature in Greek folklore. It has similarities
to many different legendary creatures, but
is generally equated with the vampire of the folklore of the
neighbouring Slavic countries. While the two
are very similar, blood-drinking is only marginally associated
with the vrykolakas. Read more here.
Source: The Rudder(Pedalion) (The Orthodox Christian Educational
Society, Chicago: 1957) pp. 830-831.
Related Link: Real Stories of Vampires from Transylvania
