In Russian, юродивый (yurodivy), "holy fool" (our translation), is the name the Orthodox tradition gives to the fool for Christ, whose apparent foolishness the people take as a sign of holiness; the feminine is юродивая (yurodivaya). In the book the word applies to Father Ferapont, to Lizaveta of the town and to Fyodor, who says he is a buffoon by birth, which amounts to the same thing as a holy fool. Rakitin applies it to Alyosha's inheritance on his mother's side.
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