Person
Father Zossima
Also known as Zossima, the elder Zossima.
Father Zossima is the celebrated elder whose presence draws Alyosha toward the monastic life. He is introduced through Alyosha's attachment to him, as an extraordinary spiritual being who seems to offer a path from worldly darkness toward love. His influence is already strong enough that Fyodor Pavlovitch recognizes him as the monk who has impressed his gentle son.
I-V. Elders
Zossima is described as a sixty-five-year-old former officer and landowner, revered for counsel, healing, and a loving intuition that draws the sinful and suffering to him.
II-III. Peasant Women Who Have Faith
He blesses the peasant women outside the hermitage, answering grief, fear, and confessed sin with practical tenderness rather than severity.
II-VI. Why Is Such A Man Alive?
During the Karamazov scandal in Father Zossima's Cell, he unexpectedly bows down at Dmitri's feet.
IV-I. Father Ferapont
Near death, he blesses the monks, tells them to love God's people, and sends Alyosha back into the world to keep his promises.
VI-III. Conversations And Exhortations Of Father Zossima
His final teachings close with a quiet, joyful death in the hermitage as he bows to the earth in prayer.
VII-I. The Breath Of Corruption
The smell from his body shocks the monastery, emboldens his opponents, and becomes a painful trial for Alyosha's faith.
VII-IV. Cana Of Galilee
Alyosha dreams of Zossima at the marriage of Cana, joyful and calling him to begin his work, then rises from the earth inwardly changed.
IX-III. The Sufferings Of A Soul, The First Ordeal
Even after his death the scene in his cell echoes through the case. At the inquiry Dmitri recalls that it was there, before the elder, that he first openly declared the murderous feelings now being used against him.
XI-II. The Injured Foot
Months after his death the elder's name is dragged through the scandal sheets, one paper absurdly claiming that he and Alyosha had robbed the monastery chest, while Madame Hohlakov now treats Alyosha as a monk standing in the dead elder's place.
XII-II. Dangerous Witnesses
At the trial it emerges that Rakitin, who once mocked him, has published a pious pamphlet, The Life of the Deceased Elder Father Zossima, turning the man into devotional copy for the diocese.
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