re: Why Fyodor Dostoevsky disdained Catholicism

Now do "Notes From The Underground" where he destroys Protestantism and Calvinism.

He ain’t wrong about Catholicism. The Reformation didn’t spring up out of the blue.

The Russian isn’t wrong here.

I did my high school thesis paper on Crime and Punishment. Man that shite was awful.

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From the Greek Orthodox and the Byzantine Empire to the Tsars and dictators of Russia and the Russian Orthodox Church, I don't see how the Eastern Orthodox Churches have the moral high ground here.

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There is nothing closer to a state religion in all of Christianity than the Russian Orthodox Church. It is barely more than Kremlin controlled spy network.

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It’s an interesting topic

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Agreed, he somewhat is a prototype of the Christian but not a member of a church type so prevalent now.

He hated priests but was all in on Jesus.

He had his own theology, but was aligned somewhat to the old believers, specifically those of the priest less variant.

Of course a WASP is going to believe that they are superior. The United States has a history of being discrimatory against Catholics. Especially against the Irish.

The Grand Inquisitor chapter of the Bros. Karamazov has a depth of insight that goes beyond Dostoevsky's satire indicting churches that embrace earthly power.

But he indicts them very well.

A gem among them is the Grand Inquisitor scolding Christ for giving people the choice to believe by feigning concern over the inability of mankind to make the right decision. 

The Grand Inquisitor chastises Christ for rejecting earthly power, making it a choice to believe, treating man as His brother and dying on a cross to free believers from guilt without the need for rituals, thus making it hard for any statist church to claim dominion over His believers.

Thanks to his satire on the motives of Church hierarchy Dostoevsky inspires a more subtle, lasting thought: No power-seeking entity of this earth would invent Christianity and perpetuate it as presented in the Gospels.

It behooves no one but those of Faith to pass on Christ's teachings. 

Thus, the Gospel surviving through the hands of corrupt Popes is something of a miracle in itself.

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The Reformation didn’t spring up out of the blue.

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True enough. The Catholic Reformation was a response to years of abuse within the Church. Fortunately those abuses were corrected by the Council of Trent, which concluded in 1563.

The Protestant Revolution (which you no doubt originally referred to) was a greedy power play by various monarchs across central and western Europe to increase their power and influence at the expense of the Church.

Russian Orthodoxy is about as merged with the state as it gets in Christianity. The Orthodox have multiple grievances with Catholicism… some are more valid than others.

The Brothers Karamazov is too depressing even for a Russian novel.