The tale is told by Ivan with brief interruptive questions by Alyosha. In the tale, Christ returns to Earth in Seville at the time of the Inquisition. He performs a number of miracles (echoing miracles from the See more

For Dostoevsky, the character of the Grand Inquisitor represents a prototypical expression of an ideology that denies Christ's true spiritual and historical significance and affirms its opposite. The Grand … See more

Dostoevsky's intention with "The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor" was to unmask the fundamental idea that lay behind the entire movement in Russia toward atheism, nihilism, rationalism and materialism, and away from the true Christian faith that was the spiritual heart of … See more

• The composer Bernd Alois Zimmermann used this tale, along with Book of Ecclesiastes, in his oratorio Ecclesiastical Action.
• The poem was filmed as Inquisition in 2002 for Channel 5 in the UK, starring Sir Derek Jacobi as the Cardinal Grand Inquisitor. See more

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• Don Carlos (play by Schiller) See more

• The Grand Inquisitor at Project Gutenberg
• EDSITEment's student guide to reading The Grand Inquisitor
• The Grand Inquisitor public domain audiobook at LibriVox See more