The controversy that surrounds the institution of the elders has to do with the history of the elders. Some said that the idea of the elders is fairly new; less than a hundred years. Others in the Orthodox East believed that it would have had to existed more than a thousand years, even maybe dating back to ancient Russian times.
I think the narrator portrays Zosima as sympathetic. In the book it said the monks used to say he was "attached in soul precisely to those who were the more sinful, and that he who was most sinful the elder loved most of all." That's him getting involved with his "victims". The people who went to the monastery told Zosima their sins and sorrows looking for advice and comforting words. Zosima put their bad deeds on his heart and gave the people that came to him advice. He did that so often that it got to the point where he could tell what was on his visitor's mind before the person spoke. After leaving the monastery most of visitors left happy; they had come in feeling scared or worried.
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