Is The Brothers Karamazov Anti-Catholic?

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alcuin18

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I’ve never read it, and I know many Catholics praise it, including Pope Benedict XVI, but I’ve also heard it has a passage making fun of the Inqusition (in an inaccurate portrayal). Is it anti-Catholic generally?

God bless
 
Brothers K is from an Orthodox prespective, so it’s not a Catholic book, per say. That being said, the famous Inquisition scene is put forward by an atheist character and is not understood, in context, as a proper understanding of Jesus. The hero of the book is an Orthodox novice at a monastery and there is a very positive portrayal of the Abbot at his monastery. It’s simular, in many ways, to a Graham Greene novel, I think… There are good Orthodox, bad Orthodox, and sinful Orthodox who are trying to stop sinning. I personally consider it one of my favorite books ever.
 
There is nothing to worry about as a Catholic. Go ahead and read it. It’s one of the very best novels ever written. I can sum up for you, in a few lines, what the “Grand Inquisitor” business is about, without giving anything away. No spoilers here.

Two half-brothers, Ivan and Alexei Karamazov, who have scarcely met since they were kids, are having dinner together in a restaurant in the small town where their father lives. Ivan, the older of the two, who is now a journalist living in Moscow, dominates the conversation. Young Alexei, a novice in the local Orthodox monastery, asks a question from time to time, but it’s a very one-sided conversation, in the course of which Ivan recites his long “poem” titled The Grand Inquisitor. The poem has two purposes in the novel, neither of which is particularly relevant to the storyline. On the one hand, Dostoevsky uses it to convey his own view of the differences between the Orthodox Church (which he likes) and the Catholic Church (which he doesn’t); on the other, Ivan is trying to impress his kid brother with his own breadth of mind as a progressive big-city liberal, holding views about conventional morality which will be questioned later on in the novel, when both Ivan and Alexei get mixed up in a murder mystery.
 
BartholomewB said:
On the one hand, Dostoevsky uses it to convey his own view of the differences between the Orthodox Church (which he likes) and the Catholic Church (which he doesn’t);
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I’ve read that Dostoevsky was quite the anti-Catholic.
 
Not really, I think. As far as I know, he never even mentions the Catholic Church or the Catholic faith in any of his books, with this one exception. His view of the Spanish Inquisition is the same kind of caricature we hear all the time from Protestants. I don’t think it goes any deeper than that.

One of the monks at the monastery has a “Catholic crucifix” on the wall of his cell, meaning a three-dimensional crucifix with the corpus. In this instance, Dostoevsky’s idea seems to be the opposite, to show that despite superficial differences such as this one, both churches are united in the Christian faith. In the usual Orthodox crucifix, the figure of Jesus is painted on the cross:

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The Grand Inquisitor poem is basically this:

Christ comes back and makes quite a bit of a splash, healing the sick, raising the dead, etc. The Grand Inquisitor arrests Jesus and throws him in prison. He shows up to Jesus and they have a little talk (more of a monologue as it’s mostly the Inquisitor speaking but still). He tells Christ that He isn’t needed anymore and His return is a threat. He informs Christ that the burden He gave humanity is too harsh and why Christ was “wrong” to reject Satan’s three temptations. He says that the Church diluted that message, lifting the demand off the shoulders of the people. That took quite a while to do so the Inquisitor says that Christ’s return would only set everyone back. Instead of answering, Christ kisses him, which shocks the Inquisitor (understandably). The Inquisitor leaves, leaving the cell door open.

What I think part of Dostoevsky’s point was, that even the Church with all of the corruption that has happened in its history (and that modern critics still object to), the Church still makes room for the spirit of its Founder.
 
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Peter Kreeft says it’s greatest novel he’s ever read so I’d be shocked if it’s Anti Catholic
 
I’ve read that too. He was an Orthodox monarchist and was concerned with proving Orthodoxy true. The source I read stated that he’d dismissed Protestantism as an improbable candidate for “true Christian church”, leaving him with Catholicism as sole target.

I personally don’t find him to be anti-Catholic and anti-Catholicism didn’t occur to me when I read the novel. Rather, I felt it was a criticism of worldliness and corruption in the Church.
 
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It also one of the favorite books of Pope Francis. Pope Francis has flat out said “I love very much Dostoevsky.”

You might want to try reading Notes from the Underground by Dostoevsky first. It is short, and Brothers Karamazov builds on the ideas in Notes from the Underground.

I struggled through Brothers Karamazov. I had to read the grand inquisitor chapter twice. The book can be thought of as follows…The first part of the book including the chapter about the grand inquisitor gives arguments against Christianity. The rest of the book refutes those arguments…if there is any book that could make a Christian out of an atheist or agnostic, this is it. I strongly recommend it!

The grand inquisitor argument really is the best argument against Christianity I’ve ever read or heard. Dostoevsky refutes it as far as I’m concerned, but the back and forth between the ideas discussed in this book will change you if you spend the time thinking through them.

 
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There are more instances aside from the Grand Inquisitor chapter that critiques Catholicism. For e.g. in an earlier chapter when the Karamazovs are visiting Zosima, there’s an extended discussion on how the Catholic Church is no longer a church but a “state”. There is another instance of a character using the term “Jesuistry” (“in the style of Jesuits”) in order to highlight an example of casuistry. There’s quite a few statements peppered here and there that are quite critical of Catholics.

But I think it’s important to set his writing in context as the 19th century was hardly era of chumly Catholic-(Russian) Orthodox relations. I’ve lost count of how many wars Western (primarily Catholic) European countries had fought against Russia by that time. Antipathy between the two religious communities was quite commonplace.

Aside from that, Dostoevsky critiqued all aspects of religion, whether Orthodox or Catholic. He indeed was a very devout and orthodox Orthodox (unlike Tolstoy who was a bit iffy at times), but that didn’t impede him from critically engaging with his own faith. There’s a humorous discussion between parishioners in one chapter, with one person commenting (very seriously) to the effect that the (Orthodox) monks at Mt Athos have fallen into heresy since they had removed church bells.

Likewise, he certainly isn’t afraid to show Orthodoxy warts-and-all. At his funeral, Zosima’s body fails to exude myrrh in accordance with prevailing belief about holy bodies (instead it stinks quite badly), and some parishioners take it as vindication of their suspicion that the starets was a fraud. Steadily this scandal engulfs the entire parish and it is followed by another monastic attempting to exorcise the funeral.
 
It’s helpful to add that some contemporary Orthodox writers and figures were very critical of the way Dostoyevsky had portrayed Orthodoxy. In a letter by one Father, (I cannot recall his name, but will find it and get back to you as soon as I am back home and can get my hands on the book) starets Zosima’s deathbed sermon was dismissed as something that does not at all reflect the spirituality and teaching of the monks of Athos and the Orthodox Church. Secular-minded Russians also criticised the novel for portraying Russia as some extremely pious Orthodox nation where everything was concerned with religion and “a sense of guilt over sin permeated everything”.
 
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My only other advice to someone reading it the first time is to remember that it is an older European style novel, so have patience with it when it seems to go slowly. If you’ve read Leo Tolstoy, Sigrid Undset, Charlotte Bronte or Quo Vadis, you will probably have an easier time… But it’s very much worth the effort of sticking with it!
 
I can’t add to what others said regarding the thread subject but for Dostoyevsky I’d recommend starting with Crime and Punishment. That’s my all time favorite novel by anyone. Brother’s Karamazov is similar to Moby Dick for me in that I’ve started it many times in different places but never finished it.
 
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Thank you all for your replies. Brothers Karamazov seems to be an exceptionally complex and intricate novel, so it can be difficult to qualify it as specifically anti anything, it seems to me. I greatly admire Orthodox tradition and spirituality, particularly Russian, so I would like to try the novel someday. I would think one of the greatest of the Catholic-Russian wars mentioned earlier that could’ve influenced Dostoyevsky would be the Napoleonic Wars, which were relatively close to his time period. It’s a shame how often in history people have attributed the sins of Catholics to the Church itself, but it’s largely our own fault.

Thank you again, God bless
 
I’ll also hazard a guess that some adherence to Orthodoxy and Russian nationalism go hand in hand, and D. was a serious Russian nationalist in his political outlook.
 
I tried to read Brothers about 45 years ago. Couldn’t slog through it. Maybe it’s time to give it another try.
 
Shasta-Rose said:
I tried to read Brothers about 45 years ago. Couldn’t slog through it. Maybe it’s time to give it another try.
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I can relate to that!

I’ve never opened Brother Karamazov but seen it highly recommended by numerous experts. I’ll put it on the reading list, which means I may get to it if I live to 80.
tomarin said:
Wasn’t Dostoevsky an existentialist?
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Thanks! I was trying to place him in my mental map. Yes, that was the impression I got, many years ago when I was more educated with these things.
Great thread! Thanks for all the informed comments about the book and sectarian history.
GemmasGirl said:
My only other advice to someone reading it the first time is to remember that it is an older European style novel, so have patience with it when it seems to go slowly. If you’ve read Leo Tolstoy, Sigrid Undset, Charlotte Bronte or Quo Vadis, you will probably have an easier time… But it’s very much worth the effort of sticking with it!
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I recently heard a great radio program about George Eliot. Would you place her in the same list? (Serious question, as after that program I’ve been wanting to read Silas Marner, which I sadly neglected when I had the chance at school in the '70s)
 
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