Ground has been broken on a 260-acre site in Breite National Park in Sighisoara, Romania, for a "Dracula Park" which could draw 1 million visitors a year to the area, reported Our Sunday Visitor, an independent Catholic newspaper.
But Catholic officials are not welcoming the plan, saying it gives the Transylvania area a bad name and will draw youths into "the occult."
"Celebrating such a dark, satanic story gives a very mistaken image of Romania -- quite apart from being historically incorrect and untruthful," said the Rev. Christian Sabau, the Eastern Catholic vicar of Bucharest.
The fictional Dracula, based on Bram Stoker's 1897 novel, was loosely based on the Romanian historical figure of Vlad Tepes, or "Vlad the Impaler," who was known for his brutal treatment of Turks and Catholic and Orthodox priests.
Archbishop Gyorgy-Miklos Jakubinyi of Alba Iulia dismissed the planned theme park, saying it was "based on a literary fiction which has nothing to do with the church."
