Gabriel Urgebadze

Gabriel of Georgia (წმიდა გაბრიელ ქართველი), born Goderdzi Urgebadze (გოდერძი ურგებაძე; 26 August 1929 – 2 November 1995) was a Georgian Orthodox monk venerated for his dedicated monastic life and piety. With many miracles ascribed to him, Gabriel's grave in Mtskheta has attracted an increasing number of pilgrims. The Georgian Orthodox Church officially canonized him as Holy Father Saint Gabriel, Confessor and Fool for Christ (წმ. ღირსი მამა გაბრიელი აღმსარებელი-სალოსი), on 20 December 2012.

Biography
Gabriel was born Goderdzi Urgebadze in Tbilisi to the family of a Communist Party functionary, who died under suspicious circumstances in 1931. After completing compulsory service in the Soviet army, he decided to enter monastic life and was tonsured a monk in 1955, taking the religious name Gabriel.

On 1 May 1965, he first became well-known in Georgia by setting fire to a banner depicting Vladimir Lenin during an International Workers' Day parade in downtown Tbilisi. He was arrested, tried and ruled to be psychotic, then confined to a mental hospital. For seven months, he was tortured there for his faith. An account of this incident was published in the West, in the Orthodox zine Death to the World in 1994.

Gabriel spent much of his later life at the nunnery of Saint Nino, which is attached to Samtavro Monastery in the ancient town of Mtskheta north of Tbilisi. He died there in 1995, and was buried in the Samtavro churchyard.

Veneration


The hieromonk Gabriel is believed by Eastern Orthodox Christians to have possessed powers of healing and prophecy, while his remains are considered incorrupt. The oil from a lamp which constantly burned at his tomb in Mtskheta is also considered miraculous. His grave became an increasingly popular pilgrimage site, and in 2012, the Holy Synod of the Georgian Orthodox Church officially recognized him as a saint.

In January 2014 rumours spread that Gabriel, in a supposed apparition to a nun in Mtskheta, had promised that two wishes will be granted to those visiting his tomb just before Christmas on 7 January. This sparked several mass gatherings at Samtavro that extra police units had to be deployed to control traffic. Church officials and the alleged seer-nun later dismissed the visions as false.

The relics of Gabriel were exhumed for reburial in a special crypt within Samtavro Monastery on 22 February 2014. Prior to its reburial, his body was toured around four major Orthodox cathedrals in Georgia, attracting thousands of devotees from all over the country.