The church of St Michael (Perillos) Saint Michael, patron saint

 

Saint Michael is the patron saint of Perillos, and by extension of the small chapel crowing the top of the hill on which Perillos sits. With this characteristic, Perillos sits in a long and famous tradition of conical hills that are crowned by churches dedicated to St Michael.

Conical hills

The two most famous conical hills dedicated to St Michael are Mont St Michel off the coast of Normandy and St Michael’s Mount, off the coast of Cornwall, near the town of Penzance. Both are tidal islands of a distinct conical shape.
Another famous “conical hill” is Glastonbury Tor, which still houses St Michael’s Tower, the remains of a one-time church on its top. It was this Tor that played an important role in the growing legend of the Grail’s alleged presence in Glastonbury – and that town’s link with Joseph of Arimathea.
Both aspects, the shape and the Grail legend, is directly relevant in Perillos. The conical shape of Perillos is very apparent from the more northern approaches, of which today merely the access road to the meteorological station remains. The inclusion of a “Perilous Chapel” in the Grail accounts also shows a potential link between the town and the Grail, as well as other details – discussed elsewhere on this site.

	Mont St Michel, off the coast of Normandy
	Mount St Michael, off the coast Cornwall, just outside of Penzance
	Glastonbury Tor, in the English county of Somerset, with the remains of St Michael's church on top.

The Archangel Michael

Saint Michael is one of the principal angels (archangels), whose name in Hebrew means “Who is like God?”. His name was the war-cry of the good angels in the battle fought in heaven against the enemy – Lucifer – and his followers.

He is mentioned four times in Scripture, including this reference in Daniel 12, where the Angel speaking of the Apocalypse and the Antichrist says: “At that time shall Michael rise up, the great prince, who stands for the children of your people.”
This is picked up in Revelations (12:7): “And there was a great battle in heaven, Michael and his angels fought with the dragon.” St Michael was also believed to stand at the gate of paradise, “to keep the way of the tree of life” (Genesis 3:24).

Balancing Good and Evil

As a consequence, St Michael is primarily associated with controlling the dragon. Note that though he is often depicted as “conquering” the dragon, it is not implied that he kills the dragon, but instead that he “controls” the negative influences of the creature and restrains its influence.
In the context of Perillos, the parallel with Ramon de Perillos and his fight against the demon Babaos must be made.

The balance of good vs. evil is also portrayed in his feastday, September 29, close to the Fall Equinox, when the powers of day and night, summer and winter, are in balance. In the Middle Ages, his feast was a holy day of obligation, but along with several other feasts it was gradually abolished from the 18th century onwards. Michaelmas Day, in England and other countries, was one of the regular quarter-days for settling rents and accounts.

Christian tradition gives St. Michael four offices. First, there is the fight against Satan (Lucifer), to whom he fought his battle in heaven. Second, and as an extension of the first, he is tasked with the rescue of the souls of the faithful from the power of Satan, especially at the hour of death. Thirdly, and at the same time, this “rescue” was also an invitation to bring the soul to judgment, to see whether the soul was righteous to enter Heaven. By extension, he was the champion of “God’s people”, typified as the Jews of the Old Covenant, and the Christians of the New Covenant. Thus, he was the patron of the Church.
In summary, St Michael was the “regulator” of those seeking (re-)admission into Heaven (after the Fall) and was thus set against Lucifer/Satan, who wanted to keep Mankind on Earth. Apparently contradictory characteristics of the archangel are thus revealed: fighting for the cause of God to control the amount of souls following Satan to Earth; re-engineering and facilitating the ascent of the fallen souls back to Heaven.

In the context of Perillos, we need to note that the presence of a “Siège de la Mort”, a “Seat of Death”, identified as the location where judgment was passed, can thus be interpreted within the framework of St Michael’s legend.

Protector of sacred tombs

In the Catholic Epistle of St. Jude a variation on the theme of Michael’s battle with Satan is presented, this time in connection with the protection of a sacred tomb – where there is a further intriguing parallel with Perillos because of Saunière’s model identifying two tombs (that of Jesus and that of Joseph of Arimathea). Both St Jude and Origen (“De principiis”, III, 2, 2) refer to a dispute between Michael and Satan over the body of Moses. St. Michael concealed the tomb of Moses; Satan, however, by disclosing it, tried to trick the Jewish people to the sin of hero-worship, namely worshipping the tomb of Moses. According to the “Revelation of Moses”, St. Michael also guards the body of Eve.

A sacred healer

Apart from championing the cause of God’s people (the Righteous) in battle, St Michael was also linked with a caring characteristic, specifically caring for and healing the sick. Tradition relates that St. Michael in the earliest ages caused a medicinal spring to spout at Chairotopa near Colossae, where all the sick who bathed there, invoking the Blessed Trinity and St. Michael, were cured. Springs and rivers were specifically dedicated to St Michael, with the Christians of Egypt even placing the Nile under the protection of St Michael. It is here that St Michael thus accepts two attributes of the Egyptian god Osiris, who was also the Judge of the Dead, and in his form of Hapi, the Nile God. The date of this festival, November 12, is linked with a festival of Osiris, in which his role in the Deluge was paramount.

In Germany, St. Michael replaced for the Christians the pagan god Wotan, and it is here that we come to identify him with conical hills as Wotan was specifically identified with sacred mountains – hence the numerous mountain chapels of St. Michael all over Germany, even though these are less-known that their equivalents in France and England.

Finally, we also need to add that apparitions and visions of St Michael are numerous and spread across the ages. In Normandy St. Michael is the patron of mariners in his famous sanctuary at Mont-Saint-Michel in the Diocese of Coutances. At Mont St Michel, Michael is said to have appeared there to St. Aubert, Bishop of Avranches, in 708. This list also includes the famous mystic warrior Joan of Arc, whose battles “for the Righteous” were notorious.