Вестник Екатеринбургской духовной семинарии (Dec 2024)
On the Religious Perception of a Thunderstorm and the Attitude to a Lightning Rod in Russia in the Second Half of the 18th Century
Abstract
One document of 1799, related to the construction activity of the Russian Imperial Court, contains the refusal of Emperor Paul I to make a lightning rod on the spire of the church of St. Michael’s Castle, which was then under construction at St. Petersburg. That decision was rather strange as far as during the late 18th century the installation of lightning rods on the buildings became widespread. This article is an attempt to clarify the context, which determined such a decision of Paul I. Invention of the lightning rod was connected with Benjamin Franklin’s researches which were, in the second half of the 18th century, directly associated with his republican ideas. It was reflected in the famous epigram addressed to Franklin: “He snatched lightning from the sky and the scepter from tyrants”. One can assume that by the time of his accession Paul had a stable association of the lightning rod invention with the revolutionary ideas, which had been already realized in France at that time. This association could be nourished by the negative responses of some clergymen on the Franklin’s invention: in the discussions about the lightning rod the religious counterarguments were used and they came back to understanding of a lightning as an instrument of God’s providence. These ideas were also widespread at St. Petersburg in the second half of the 18th century: one description of the Russian capital provides a similar explanation of the fires in some churches, which were caused by lightning. The understanding of a lightning as God’s favor should have been much closer to Paul I than Franklin’s rationalism of the republican. In the European medieval narrations a lightning was associated with the Archangel Michael’s image. And its significance for St. Michael’s Castle is well known: the decision of Paul I to build it was preceded by a formed legend about the Archangel Michael’s apparition at that place. Another tale about the apparitions of Archangel Michael on the mount Gargano could have been considered as the evidence of construction and consecration of St. Michael’s church by the Archangel himself, through the use of thunder and lightning. In the context of this tale, a resistance to the lightning with the help of a lightning rod, apparently, should have been perceived by Paul I as fighting against Archangel Michael.
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