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Ntoupi

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a name which is given to excommunicated persons by the Greek Christians, because (as the uneducated and superstitious among them pretend) the bodies of the Ntoupi do not rot in the earth, but swell and sound like a drum whenever they are touched or, moved. In confirmation of this ridiculous notion, they tell the following story: Mohammed II, having heard much of the efficacy of excommunication in the Greek Church, ordered Maximus, the patriarch of Constantinople, to procure him the sight of the body of an excommunicated person. The patriarch, at a loss how to satisfy the grand-seignior's request, communicated it to his clergy, among whom some of the most ancient remembered that under the patriarchate of Genniadius the body of a beautiful widow, who had been excommunicated for slandering the patriarch, had been taken up a considerable time after her death, and been found entire, and then buried a second time. Maximus, being informed of the place where this lady was, buried, sent word thereof to the sultan, who sent some of his officers, in whose presence the grave was opened, and the corpse was found whole, but black, and puffed up like a bladder. The officers having made a report thereof, Mohammed was astonished thereat, and ordered the body to be transported to a chapel of the church Pammacarista. A few days after, by the sultan's command, the coffin was presented to the patriarch to take off the excommunication. Accordingly the patriarch, having repeated the absolution, there was heard a crackling noise of the bones and nerves; whereupon the officers shut the body up again in the chapel, and visiting it some days after, found it crumbled to dust. They add, the sultan, being convinced of this miracle, acknowledged the Christian religion to be very powerful. See Broughton; Hist. of Religions, s.v.