The Grand Inquisitor

Considered to be one of the most crucial passages and subplots to Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel "The Brothers Karamazov", this story is a parable told by Ivan to his younger brother Alyosha, a novice monk, about the return of Christ during the time of the Spanish Inquisition. When Christ begins performing miracles, he is soon arrested by those of the Inquisition. "The Grand Inquisitor" has influenced many literary and popular culture works as an exemplary philosophical and religious work in its own right and the themes presented in the parable are a driving force for the character development of Ivan and Alyosha throughout the rest of "The Brothers Karamazov".