Cainite Heresy

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The Cainite Heresy is a fictional heretical cult, practised by some vampires and their human subjects in the setting of Vampire: The Dark Ages, a role-playing game by White Wolf Game Studio.

The Heresy is a Gnostic cult, focused on the sacrament of Blood Communion, which replaces or mingles the Christian sacramental wine of the Eucharist with vampiric vitae.

The Cainite Heretics believe that the material world, which is impure and corrupt, was made by a petty demiurge. Caine was punished by this inferior deity for hearing the words of the Serpent (called Sophia, "Wisdom"), but he and his descendants were blessed by the true God with the ability to sustain themselves wholly on blood, the pure force of life, and were spared aging and death; thus vampires are almost independent of the decay of this world and akin to angels. The purported mission of the Heresy is to take the Blood Communion to all humanity, bringing them closer to the Cainite form, while expecting the coming of the Third Caine (the messiah) and Gehenna.

The Heretics mark some special days and occasions with another sacrament called the Red Pentecost, in which the Beast is freed and worshipped through perverse acts under the influence of drugs and mind-altering Disciplines.

The cult is formally ruled by the Bishops of Nod, whose head is the Archbishop (in the "current" setting, Prince Narses of Venice, a Lasombra). The administrative bureaucracy of the bishops is composed almost entirely of ghouls and is known as the Crimson Curia. The actual hierarchy and structure of the Heresy is extremely complex and fluctuating, with regional leaders often in conflict with their neighbours, and variant doctrines and practices.

Most Heresiarchs are not true believers; they are manipulative cynics who oppose the Catholic Church (scornfully called "The Church of Pilate") not only for theological reasons, but mainly for its power and influence. They seek to subject mankind to domination using the Blood Communion as a means of control. In particular, the Crimson Curia has been at work infiltrating the Roman Church and especially the Roman Curia, with the ultimate goal of influencing the Pope.

The foundations of the cult were created in 413 AD, when a Byzantine priest and scholar called Procopius, charged with exterminating heresy, found a copy of the Book of Nod. Procopius then proceeded to use his blood, and that of his subordinates, to write the Euagetaematikon, or "Book of the Shining Blood", the main scripture of the Cainite Heretics.

Note: There was a Gnostic sect known as the Cainites during the 2nd century AD. This sect has no connection with vampirism or the fiction of the Cainite Heresy.

See also: Ophites