Thirteen: East and West
One decision some will find disturbing in my adaptation will prove my elimination of a favorite character -- Professor Van Helsing.
If you feel the need to gasp or scream, please feel free.
My reasons are several, not least because I wanted the Englishmen seeking to protect against Dracula to have less support, fewer resources and no ready source of answers (at least none to whom they will readily listen). Apart from increasing the tension, this also leaves the audience without their usual source of undead lore, hence (hopefully) listening more closely to what they may be told. But a more subtle point lies in the fact Van Helsing is so Roman Catholic. I should mention as well Bram Stoker -- a native of Catholic Ireland -- interestingly presumed people in Transylvania would follow the Roman Church. In fact Romania has been overwhelmingly Eastern Orthodox for centuries. This branch of Christianity, one of the largest on Earth, remains mysterious if not totally unknown in the West, so Stoker if anything made a totally understandable error.
But the Orthodox Church resembles not at all what one person I know described as "Roman Catholics with beards." No, it makes up a very different approach to God, to the sacraments, to even the act of prayer. In fact to them, Roman Catholics and Protestants remain two sides of the precisely same coin. Both view death (at least initially, but also most importantly) as a criminal trial. An individual SINNER approaches the divine bar of justice, facing some kind of punishment for sins committed. Protestants do so asking for Holy Mercy--either out of love or because they believe themselves Elect, favorite children of the Creator who get to lord it over the rest of mankind. Roman Catholics on the other hand look for loopholes or mitigating circumstances, hence the sacraments of confession and atonement. The Orthodox see things differently, with death as a return to one's origins, i.e. the endless and unchangeable love of God. If you have found a way to allow that love into your own heart, then what you experience is bliss. If you have rejected it, then you find yourself immersed (almost drowning) in that what you reject. This, the Orthodox teach, is Hell -- not a punishment created by God, but a terrible state of being created by Man.
This makes for but one example of the individual differences between Western and Eastern Christian Churches, but it hints at how much trouble people like Arthur Holmwood or Jack Seward might have in listening to someone native to Transylvania trying to explain about the nature of a vampire. Hence in my version instead of the Dutch professor with multiple degrees, the source of lore becomes Sister Agatha -- one of the nuns who treated Harker after his escape from the Castle. She take him back to England, and after a time tries desperately to warn the English of their peril.
To be continued
If you feel the need to gasp or scream, please feel free.
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| Orthodox Nun |
But the Orthodox Church resembles not at all what one person I know described as "Roman Catholics with beards." No, it makes up a very different approach to God, to the sacraments, to even the act of prayer. In fact to them, Roman Catholics and Protestants remain two sides of the precisely same coin. Both view death (at least initially, but also most importantly) as a criminal trial. An individual SINNER approaches the divine bar of justice, facing some kind of punishment for sins committed. Protestants do so asking for Holy Mercy--either out of love or because they believe themselves Elect, favorite children of the Creator who get to lord it over the rest of mankind. Roman Catholics on the other hand look for loopholes or mitigating circumstances, hence the sacraments of confession and atonement. The Orthodox see things differently, with death as a return to one's origins, i.e. the endless and unchangeable love of God. If you have found a way to allow that love into your own heart, then what you experience is bliss. If you have rejected it, then you find yourself immersed (almost drowning) in that what you reject. This, the Orthodox teach, is Hell -- not a punishment created by God, but a terrible state of being created by Man.
This makes for but one example of the individual differences between Western and Eastern Christian Churches, but it hints at how much trouble people like Arthur Holmwood or Jack Seward might have in listening to someone native to Transylvania trying to explain about the nature of a vampire. Hence in my version instead of the Dutch professor with multiple degrees, the source of lore becomes Sister Agatha -- one of the nuns who treated Harker after his escape from the Castle. She take him back to England, and after a time tries desperately to warn the English of their peril.
To be continued
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