The Grand Inquisitor characters

Appears from the start

The younger Karamazov brother, a novice attached to a monastery and the listener to Ivan's imagined religious tale. His compassionate faith makes him an especially important audience for Ivan's challenge to divine justice and human freedom.

Appears from the start

Alyosha's intellectual older brother and the creator and narrator of the prose poem about Christ's return to Seville. He uses the encounter he imagines to test whether people can bear freedom when obedience, security, and authority offer easier comforts.

Also known as Christ, the Prisoner

Appears from the start

Jesus, imagined by Ivan as returning silently to sixteenth-century Seville during the Inquisition. The people recognize him and respond to his acts of mercy, but church authorities arrest him. He answers the Inquisitor's long accusation without argument, finally responding with a kiss.

Appears from the start

An aged cardinal who commands the Inquisition in Seville. He has Jesus arrested and privately argues that Christ burdened humanity with a freedom most people cannot endure. Claiming that the Church has corrected that work through miracle, mystery, authority, and managed obedience, he threatens to burn his prisoner before silently releasing him after receiving a kiss.

Appears from the start

A grieving woman in the Seville crowd who begs the returned Christ to restore her dead child. Her appeal leads to the girl's revival and helps make the crowd's recognition of the visitor unmistakable before the Inquisitor intervenes.

Appears from the start

A young girl being carried for burial when her mother appeals to Christ. She rises at his command, an event witnessed by the people and by the approaching Grand Inquisitor.