The story of the Grand Inquisitor, although it is only an episode of Dostoevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov", captured the exclusive attention of philosophers, theologians, politicians, and of course, critics. His contemplation entered the 20th century with the chilling impetus that the views on European nihilism of Nietzsche brought, who claimed that the 'collapse' of all values would determine the nightmarish fate of the European man. Dostoevsky saw with horror this nihilism galloping on the beast of rationalism and opposed the deep, unreasoning faith of Orthodoxy to the nightmarish fate of Man in general.

The intellectuals of the late 19th and early 20th centuries sensed it, but only a few whispered something. Most approached the issue from an ethical or theological perspective, but the real issue posed by the Grand Inquisitor is not theological - it is political. The questions he raises are related to the ability of man to build a just life. How is this possible? Through faith or through the enforced imposition of ideas? Through love or through violence? From the masses or from the leaders? From the people or from power?