The Grand Inquisitor

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The Grand Inquisitor
by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Standalone copy of the chapter "The Grand Inquisitor"
Country	Russian Empire
Language	Russian
Genre(s)	Poem, parable, philosophical fiction, story within a story
Pages	22

"The Grand Inquisitor" is a story within a story (called a poem by its fictional author) contained within Fyodor Dostoevsky's 1880 novel The Brothers Karamazov. It is recited by Ivan Fyodorovich Karamazov, during a conversation with his brother Alexei, a novice monk, about the possibility of a personal and benevolent God. "The Grand Inquisitor" is an important part of the novel and one of the best-known passages in modern literature because of its ideas about human nature and freedom.

In a long diatribe directed at Jesus Himself, who has returned to Earth in Seville at the height of the Inquisition, the Grand Inquisitor defends the following ideas: only the principles of the devil can lead to mankind's unification; give man bread, control his conscience, and rule the world; Jesus limited himself to a small group of chosen ones, while the Catholic Church improved on his work and addresses all people; the church rules the world in the name of God, but with the devil's principles; Jesus was mistaken in holding man in high esteem. Jesus remains silent throughout the Inquisitor's speech.

Scholars cite Friedrich Schiller's play Don Carlos (1787) as a major inspiration for Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor, while also noting that "The sources of the legend are extraordinarily varied and complex."^[1]