Summary

The Priest with the Golden Hair – “In the year that Vasilisa Petrovna turned fourteen” (95), narration describes the power and influence of the Metropolitan Alexei, at first an advisor to Prince Ivan, but since the Prince’s death seven years before, a protector for Dmitri. Narration also describes how Alexei realized the time had come for Dmitri to be officially crowned, and how Alexei had become aware of a possible threat to Dmitri’s authority: a popular, attractive, golden-haired priest named Father Konstantin. Narration then describes how, when he receives word that the priest at the church on Pyotr’s and Anna’s estate has died, and Alexei tells the reluctant Konstantin that that is his new position.

Later, after Konstantin has settled in on the estate, narration describes his unhappiness and, in particular, his discomfort with Vasya who, in his mind, does not...