A persons religious beliefs or faith can be a part of them, but sometimes it slowly grows in them until it takes over their lives completely, to the point of fanaticism. When this occurs and their faith is shattered, the life of the individual can be completely turned around, for better or for worse. If the result is hatred for ones previous religion, the surrounding emotions can be unbelievably strong. In the movie Dracula, Francis Ford Coppola attempts to illustrate the fact that when fanatical religious faith is turned against itself, the consequential hatred for that religion can be stronger than that of hate caused by almost any other means. This means that people should be cautious in how much faith they put in something else, to the extent where it rules their entire lives. He does this by the portrayal of the life of Count Dracula, and the turn of events that caused him to undertake the renouncement of the church, the personification of Dracula as an Anti-Christ, and finally, the characterization of the vampire, and its needs to spread its kind. .
Dracula was a follower of the Church, and a strong, almost fanatical believer in all it stood for. This was shown by the fact that he was continuously fighting holy wars, risking his subject's lives, and mainly his own life in the protection of the church, and in the name of God. However, due to the deceit of his enemies, while he was at war, his lover Elizabetha killed herself, believing Dracula to be dead. By doing this, she damned her own soul, in the eyes of the Church. Dracula on hearing this realized that after his own death, he would not be able to spend all of eternity in heaven with her. This practically tore his mind apart, filling it with a hatred of the Church, deeming it responsible for the fact that he would never be companion to Elizabetha again. He assumed God had forsaken him in the part of his life he had needed the most, and his whole fanaticism for the church had taken a complete turn over, into hatred for it.