The play, written in the form of a mystery play, presents the story of a group of peasants who, influenced by Ilya's biblical prophecy about the approaching end of the world, decide to 'help' God in his work of salvation (and save themselves in the process) by performing a second crucifixion. So they set out, assigning amongst themselves the characters they will play: Pontius Pilate, Judas, and so on. Naturally, they decide to cast the supposed prophet Ilya himself in the role of Christ. But the Way of the Cross on which they embark to save the world turns into an arduous experience of misery and suffering, a procession of the tormented, the wronged and the demeaned.
The titular Ilya is based on the authentic figure of Eliasz Klimowicz, the leader of an Orthodox religious sect in the 1930s. He attempted to reconstruct the world of biblical events, including Miracles and Healings, the Crucifixion and Resurrection, the End of the World and the Last Judgement, in Wierszalin (New Jerusalem) in the Białystok region.
As Krzysztof Wolicki insightfully wrote:
“In Słobodzianek's play, it is completely irrelevant whether Ilya really is the Messiah, as indeed it is also irrelevant whether religion has any truth in the classical, Aristotelian sense. In other words, all supernaturalism is a fact of culture, and Słobodzianek, though not at all blasphemous, joins the long line of those whom every church should blacklist. They are, in a way, worse than atheists and blasphemers who argue with God: they do not argue with God, they are not interested in him at all other than as an object of worship. They talk, write and think about God like an entomologist does about insects, or worse still, because they exploit him symbolically and poetically...”