Lankester Merrin

Father Lankester Merrin (Novel: c.1892-1971;Film: c.1896-1975) is a fictional character in the novel The Exorcist (1971), its film adaptation, The Exorcist (1973), and several sequel films. He was born in Holland, the son of a Dutch father and an English mother. Merrin, an elderly priest on an archeological dig in Iraq, finds images of the demon Pazuzu and subsequently experiences other unusual phenomena. He had previously faced the demon many years ago during an exorcism in Africa. The find sparks a premonition that he will battle the demon again in a distant land. Merrin does not appear again until much later in the novel, when he joins the protagonist, Father Damien Karras, in Washington D.C. to exorcise the demon from the body of a...