Saint Gabriel, Confessor and Fool for Christ (†1995) — October 20 / November 2 (Julian Calendar)

On this day, October 20 according to the Julian Calendar (November 2 civil calendar), the Georgian Orthodox Church commemorates Saint Gabriel, Confessor and Fool for Christ.

Saint Gabriel (Goderdzi Urgebadze) was born on August 26, 1929, in Tbilisi, and was baptized in infancy at the Church of the Great Martyr Barbara in Navtlugi. His father died when he was two years old. His mother, Varvara, at first opposed his calling, but later took monastic vows herself with the name Anna. In 1949 he was drafted into the Soviet army; while stationed in Batumi he fasted in secret and attended services at the Church of Saint Nicholas. After his discharge he built a small hut in his family’s courtyard, where he prayed in solitude, and served as a watchman and psalm-reader at Sioni Cathedral with the blessing of Catholicos-Patriarch Melchizedek III.

In January 1955 he was ordained a deacon. On February 23, 1955, he was tonsured a monk at Motsameta Monastery in Kutaisi and received the name Gabriel, and three days later he was ordained a hieromonk. He served at Sioni Cathedral, then at Betania Monastery, which became the chief spiritual influence of his life, and later at the Old Trinity Church in Tbilisi.

On May 1, 1965, during the official May Day demonstration, the saint set fire to a large portrait of Lenin and called on the crowd to turn to Christ. The crowd beat him severely, and he was rescued only by the intervention of soldiers. In the hands of the KGB he suffered a broken jaw and many other injuries, yet he refused to say that the Church leadership had sent him, even when offered leniency. Instead of being executed he was confined to a psychiatric hospital, and after three months he was released. He retained his priestly rank but was forbidden to serve, and for years he was summoned and mistreated by the security services.

After his release Saint Gabriel took up the labor of a fool for Christ, preaching openly in the streets and concealing his spiritual gifts behind unusual behavior. In 1971 he was appointed abbot of the Samtavro Monastery in Mtskheta, where he lived in a tower cell. From 1972 he made pilgrimages to churches and monasteries that had been abandoned or closed in Soviet times, and in 1987 he moved into a small unheated wooden hut that had once been a chicken coop, enduring harsh winters as an ascetic discipline. The faithful came to him in great numbers for counsel and healing, and many testified to his gifts of foresight and wonderworking. An angel is said to have revealed to him the hiding place of a particle of the Holy Cross of Svetitskhoveli, which he recovered together with the nuns and which is kept at Samtavro.

Having foretold the day of his death, Saint Gabriel reposed in the Lord on November 2, 1995, at the age of sixty-six, and was buried without a coffin in the courtyard of Samtavro Monastery. Pilgrims have gathered at his grave ever since, and many miracles have been recorded through his prayers. On December 20, 2012, the Holy Synod of the Georgian Orthodox Church numbered him among the saints as Holy Father Gabriel, Confessor and Fool for Christ, and on February 22, 2014, his relics were solemnly transferred to a crypt within Samtavro Monastery.