The Grand Inquisitor is the name of one of the chapters in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazovs. It is one of the greatest literary works of all times. Dostoevsky considered his legend The Grand Inquisitor to be his greatest achievement. No matter how many times you read it, you’ll discover something new every time.

The scene is Seville during the Spanish Inquisition. One day, Christ appears and is immediately recognized by everyone. The people drop to their knees and worship. Shortly after, The Grand Inquisitor appears and orders his guards to arrest Christ and to put him to prison. Nobody protests, instead, everyone drops on their knees and worship the Inquisitor. That evening the Inquisitor goes to Christ in his cell and begins a long monologue, accusing Christ for everything he has done.

The central idea of The Grand Inquisitor is the question that man is faced with: freedom with suffering or happiness without freedom. The Inquisitor tells Christ that faced with this dilemma, most people will always chose happiness without freedom. And that the thing that Christ didn’t understand is that freedom that Christ wanted to give people is incompatible with happiness of people. But he, the Inquisitor, understood it very well and knew exactly what needed to be done in order to make people feel happy and safe.

As the Inquisitor describes what needed to be done in order to make people happy and safe, you can’t help but notice certain similarities with our own time. You’ll have to read The Grand Inquisitor for yourself to fully appreciate it. But here’s one of the things you might recognize:

Oh, we shall persuade them that they will only become free when they renounce their freedom for us and submit to us. (The Grand Inquisitor)

Isn’t it exactly what the modern mini-inquisitors have been trying to make us believe? Give up your freedom, submit, and only then you’ll be truly free:

Vaccine passports our ticket to freedom. (source)

‘Passport to freedom': Quebec says vaccine passports available for download Wednesday. (source)

Vaccine passports – and the subsequent ending of lockdowns – are critical for the tourism industry and other businesses to survive. (source)

The 3 ways you’ll get a Covid ‘freedom pass’ to go to the pub. (source)

Covid vaccine passports will be short-term ‘bridge to freedom’ (source)

Аll thеse passes, passports, and bridges to freedom are means of control and nothing else. They represent the freedom that has been taken away from us. Unfortunately, after seeing how easily and eagerly most people have given up their freedom in the past 18 months, I’m afraid, the Grand Inquisitor was right when he said:

I tell you, man has no preoccupation more nagging than to find the person to whom that unhappy creature may surrender the gift of freedom with which he is born.