“The Grand Inquisitor” is a parable that takes on several complex issues, including the way the relationship between the Church (especially the Catholic Church) and the teachings of Christ has changed over time, the existence of free will, and the truth about human nature. “The Grand Inquisitor,” put into the mouth of the atheist intellectual Ivan Karamazov, is on the broadest level an expression of the 19th-century atheistic, rationalist, and materialist ideas—ideas with which Dostoevsky himself had wrestled throughout his life. Western-influenced rationalism and scientism, championed throughout the novel by Ivan’s character, stand in opposition to the idea, still prevalent in late-19th century Russia, that the Orthodox Christian faith was the heart of the nation. But “The Grand Inquisitor” is a complex and multifaceted “poem,” made even more complex by its embedded position with a novel that is itself extremely complex and deeply philosophical, and cannot be reduced simply to an atheistic statement. The piece must be analyzed on several levels and raises many questions, not all of them necessarily answerable.

Ivan’s poem pits Christ and his teachings against those of the Church, specifically the Roman Catholic Church. The distinction is important as Dostoevsky’s Russia followed Orthodox Christianity and regarded the Catholic Church as a rival and wrong branch of the religion.