Gabriel Gruber

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Gabriel Gruber, S.J. (May 6, 1740 - April 7, 1805) was the second Father General of the Society of Jesus in Russia. He was born in Vienna, then capital of the Holy Roman Empire under Charles VI. Gruber studied in Graz, and became a Jesuit in 1755.

Gruber was an expert in hydrotechnology and architecture, and also had a basic knowledge of navigation and the history of seamanship. In 1769, he started teaching mathematics, mechanics, hydraulics and engineering at the School of Mechanical Engineering in Laibach (Slovenian: Ljubljana). The school taught classes in shipbuilding, port devices and structures, and Gruber's wish was to build a dockyard nearby. That enterprise proved to be prohibitively expensive.

In early life, Gruber was a fanatical builder of model ships, and some of the teaching materials at the School of Mechanical Engineering were naval models of his that were made at the school between 1774 and 1783. Before being included in the Maritime Museum collection, these models were kept in the National Museum in Ljubljana. Some of Gruber's other workshop models had been in Pula, Croatia, but disappeared during the withdrawal of the Italian army in 1943. Other Gruber models exhibited in the Maritime Museum are the Venetian battle galleon, the lagoon cargo galleon, the corvette, the schooner and a framework used during ship construction.

On July 21, 1773, Pope Clement XIV had the Jesuits suppressed through the brief Dominus ac redemptor. Three weeks later, the Jesuit missions of most Roman Catholic nations had been expelled. At this time, Father Gruber began concentrate on his design skills, and for the next eight years was the architect and builder of Gruber Palace—a vast rococo edifice that was originally his mansion—used for his researches in physics and hydraulics. It had also an astronomic observatory. The palace was bought in 1887 by the Carniolan Savings Bank and has housed the Slovenian archives since 1965.

In 1775, Pius VI became the new pope with the support of the ministers of the Crowns and the anti-Jesuit party. There was a tacit understanding that he would continue the action of Clement XIV and further sponsor the destruction of the Jesuits. On the other hand, the zelanti—pro-Jesuit cardinals—believed Pius VI to be secretly inclined towards Jesuitism, and expected some reparation from him for the alleged wrongs of Clement XIV. As a result of these complications Pius VI was led into a series of half measures which gave little satisfaction to either party, although it is perhaps largely due to him that the order was able to escape persecution in Byelorussia and Silesia.

In 1784, Father Gruber visited the Jesuit mission in Polozk, a border city between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Russian Empire where he fell in with the exiled Jesuit community in Russia. Gruber was an active engineer, chemist, architect, painter, mechanic and physician. Under Father Gruber's influence, the college in Polozk became a famous academy of technical science. He was influential in the court of Catherine the Great, and also became a close confidant of her successor Tsar Paul I. Talks between Gruber and the Emperor about the possibility of the Russian Orthodox Church becoming part of the Roman Church were discussed in earnest.

In 1796, Napoleon I invaded Italy, defeated the papal troops and occupied Ancona and Loreto. Napoleon's chief of staff—General Louis Alexandre Berthier—invaded Rome on February 13, 1798, proclaimed the city a republic, and demanded the pope renounce his temporal authority. Upon his refusal he was taken prisoner. Later in 1798, Tsar Paul I was elected as the Grand Master of the Order of St John, to whom he gave shelter following their ejection from Malta by Napoleon. His leadership resulted in the establishment of the Russian tradition of the Knights Hospitaller (Knights of Malta) within the Imperial Orders of Russia. On August 29 of that same year, Pius VI died in French custody in the town of Valence.

By 1800 Father Gruber had became the first rector of the Aristocratic College at the Saint Petersburg State University. On March 7, 1801, the new Pope, Pius VII issued the brief Catholicae fidei, giving approval to the existence of the Russian Jesuits and allowed the surviving Society the power to elect a Superior General for Russia. On March 9, 1801, the Papal Secretary of State, Cardinal Consalvi, informed the Papal chargé d'affaires at Saint Petersburg that Tsar Paul I—as a non-Catholic—was not a legitimate Grand Master of Malta. Some historians believe that Paul secretly became a Roman Catholic in order to gain recognition of his Grand-Mastership by the Holy See. On the night of March 23, 1801, Paul was murdered in his bedroom by a band of dismissed officers headed by General Bennigsen, a Hanoverian in the Russian service.

In 1802, the General Congregation of Polozk made Gruber the Superior General, the second man to hold this position. His predecessor was Father Franciszek Kareu, Vicar General of the Russian Society at the time of Catholicae fidei. On July 30, 1804, Gruber received authority from the Society at Naples, and his official title became Superior General of the Society of Jesus in Russia and Naples. Gruber died in a fire at his Saint Petersburg residence on April 7, 1805.

Preceded by: Franciszek Kareu

Father General of the Society in Russia 1802 – 1805

Succeeded by: Tadeusz Brzozowski

This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia.