Pavel Florensky 1882 – 1937

Pavel Aleksandrovich Florensky was a Russian Orthodox theologian, mathematician, electrical engineer, art historian, and philosopher of religion, often called the Russian Leonardo. After ordination he taught at the Moscow Theological Academy and continued, after the Revolution, to wear his cassock to scientific conferences while contributing to the Soviet electrification program. His major theological work, The Pillar and Ground of the Truth, develops a thought of antinomy, in which truth is grasped only by holding contraries together. He was arrested, imprisoned, and shot in the Gulag in 1937.