22 Facts About Pavel Florensky

Pavel Florensky's father came from a family of Russian Orthodox priests while his mother Olga Saparova was of the Tbilisi Armenian nobility in Georgia.

Pavel Florensky "always searched for the roots of his Armenian family" and noted that they came from Karabakh.

Pavel Florensky completed his high school studies at the Tbilisi classical lyceum, where several companions were later to distinguish themselves, among them the founder of Russian Cubo-Futurism, David Burliuk.

In 1899, Pavel Florensky underwent a religious crisis, connected to a visit to Leo Tolstoy caused by an awareness of the limits and relativity of the scientific positivism and rationality which had been an integral part of his initial formation within his family and high school.

Pavel Florensky decided to construct his own solution by developing theories that would reconcile the spiritual and the scientific visions on the basis of mathematics.

Pavel Florensky entered the department of mathematics of the Imperial Moscow University and studied under Nikolai Bugaev, and became friends with his son, the future poet and theorist of Russian symbolism, Andrei Bely.

Pavel Florensky was particularly drawn to Georg Cantor's set theory.

Pavel Florensky became a prominent member of the Russian Symbolism movement, together with his friend Andrei Bely and published works in the magazines New Way and Libra.

Pavel Florensky started his main philosophical work, The Pillar and Ground of the Truth: an Essay in Orthodox Theodicy in Twelve Letters.

Central to Pavel Florensky's work is an exploration of the various meanings of Christian love, which is viewed as a combination of philia and agape.

Pavel Florensky describes the ancient Christian rites of the adelphopoiesis, which joins male friends in chaste bonds of love.

Pavel Florensky continued to teach philosophy and lived at Troitse-Sergiyeva Lavra until 1919.

Pavel Florensky published works on philosophy, theology, art theory, mathematics and electrodynamics.

Pavel Florensky was a spiritual teacher of the controversial Russian writer Vasily Rozanov, urging him to reconcile with the Orthodox Church.

Pavel Florensky worked simultaneously as the Scientific Secretary of the Historical Commission on Troitse-Sergiyeva Lavra and published his works on ancient Russian art.

Pavel Florensky was rumoured to be the main organizer of a secret endeavour to save the relics of St Sergii Radonezhsky whose destruction had been ordered by the government.

Pavel Florensky defended himself vigorously against the imputations until he realized that by showing a willingness to admit them, though false, he would enable several acquaintances to resecure their liberty.

Pavel Florensky was sentenced to ten years in the labor camps by the infamous Article 58 of Joseph Stalin's criminal code.

Pavel Florensky served at the Baikal Amur Mainline camp until 1934 when he was moved to Solovki, where he conducted research into producing iodine and agar out of the local seaweed.

Pavel Florensky's name was registered in 1982 among the list of New Martyrs and Confessors.

Pavel Florensky, often read for his contributions to the religious renaissance of his time or scientific thinking, came to be studied in a broader perspective in the 1960s, a change associated with the revival of interest in neglected aspects of his oeuvre shown by the Tartu school of semiotics, which evaluated his works in terms of their anticipation of themes that formed part of the theoretical avant-garde's interests in a general theory of cultural signs at that time.

In that essay, his interpretation has recently been developed and reformulated critically by Clemena Antonova, who argues rather that what Pavel Florensky analysed is better described in terms of "simultaneous planes".