11/2/2022
Larisa Khrustalyeva
Rating: 9.5|Votes: 36
Coming to the starets at his grave every day, I noticed that you could feel a special grace and tranquility. You don’t think about anything, nothing comes to your mind, you don’t worry about anything. There is extraordinary peace in your soul.
Rating: 8.8|Votes: 22
November 2, 2015 was the twenty-year anniversary of the repose of Georgia’s beloved new saint, Elder Gabriel (Ugrebadze).
Yuri Pushchaev, Nun Gabriela (Kvastiani)
Rating: 9.2|Votes: 22
A distinctive feature of Samtavro is, above all, that it was precisely here that Christianity became the state religion, that is, the spiritual foundation of social and political life was laid here, based on Orthodoxy.
Irina Akhundova
Taking advantage of the kind permission of Nun Maria, we offer a small part of the miracles of the fragrant icon of Elder Gabriel.
My blood ran cold in my veins because of the imminent jump into the abyss, and I cried: “Lord, have mercy! Father Gabriel, if you hear me, do something.”
Constantine Tsertsvadze
“How long do I have to live?” I asked. “Up to three months,” I heard the answer. Some time passed, and I was put on morphine. I suffered from excruciating pain; with every passing day I grew weaker, as if losing the remainder of my strength.
It was Elder Gabriel who made Galina Petrovna laugh in the last minutes of her life on earth, and escorted her soul peacefully, thus answering her prayer by “bringing her petition unto the Lord”—to take her soul if only one day prior to Marina’s repose.
Rating: 10|Votes: 27
No matter where we took the icon and the relics of Elder Gabriel, people everywhere loudly exclaimed: “GLORY TO GOD!”
Maria Pukhova
Rating: 9.8|Votes: 34
Having arrived at the church, I saw icicles on the window-sills. The flowers in the vase stood in ice and even the water in the electric kettle had frozen. Despite these temptations, I was confident that Elder Gabriel wouldn’t leave us without his help in such a sorry state.
Irina Akhundova, Maria Pukhova
Rating: 10|Votes: 33
I felt Fr. Gabriel’s help in everything, from editing and formatting to preparing the cover and layout of the book. It is the most complete edition dedicated to Elder Gabriel to date: It contains a detailed biography, instructions, prophecies, and numerous examples of the holy man’s miracles.
Avtandil Dardzhania
Rating: 9.8|Votes: 40
Below we offer a story about St. Gabriel from Avtandil Dardzhania who was healed of a cancerous tumor on his head after praying to the saint.
Tornike Chikadze
Rating: 9.8|Votes: 43
This joy always overwhelms you, when you have spoken with Elder Gabriel or he with you!
Rating: 9.8|Votes: 29
We present here a selection of several new testimonies of Elder Gabriel that confirm the fact that our beloved Father Gabriel is a speedy helper and daring intercessor even in the most seemingly simple cases.
Constantine Tsertsvadze, Abbess Seraphima (Chitanava)
Rating: 9.9|Votes: 7
We talked with Abbess Seraphima (Chitanava) about Elder Gabriel’s abundant love, his personality and holiness.
Marina Syrevich
Rating: 9|Votes: 28
On a small table before the icon of St. Gabriel there was a large basket with lovely fruit and a large tray of candy. “Strange,” I thought. “Fruit—it’s not the Transfiguration. Candy—it’s not a table for the dead. So why?”
Constantine Tsertsvadze, David Chikadze
Rating: 9.2|Votes: 25
St. Gabriel (Urgebadze)… Everyone who knew Elder Gabriel remembers that he was extraordinarily simple, humble, and loving, and at the same time formidable. When he was angry or rebuked someone, you could feel that the Almighty was speaking through his mouth—such Divine authority and power his words possessed; but when he noticed that someone was repenting, he would embrace him, press him to his chest, and instill hope and love into the heart of his beloved. The “foolish” elder today, in our day, continues to strengthen people in faith, and to infuse love into their hearts invisibly, and sometimes visibly, appearing among believers, regardless of religion, simple people, beginning the thorny path of salvation known as Orthodoxy.
Rating: 8.5|Votes: 11
St. Gabriel (Ugrebadze) showed through his life a very elevated example of eldership. He possessed the God-given gift of prophecy. He preached the Lord’s word, sang, danced, wept, laughed, joked, rebuked, forbade, instructed, prayed, again wept, and again laughed… One had to live side-by-side with him for a few months in order to learn how to understand the profundity of his inner world, and not be scandalized by his strange acts of foolishness-for-Christ. In him was a strength before which people bow down even now—the strength of prayer and love.
Rating: 10|Votes: 13
Soon I was shown the tests results and the computer-aided tomography scan of my son’s brain: he had a malignant tumor with metastases in the brain. Georgian doctors refused to perform an operation on my child.
Irakli Gogoladze, Constantine Tsertsvadze
Rating: 9.7|Votes: 29
In the morning, mother and I came along with a friend to the hospital. We went to my father’s room… to be more exact, we ran with horror when we heard the nurse’s shriek: “It can’t be!” We thought, well, it’s the end! My mother fainted.
David Giorgobiani
Fr. Gabriel showed us another world, he showed us Christ—living and active.
She was not going to enter the church, but she suddenly heard a high-pitched voice, calling out, “Where are you going?! Come into the church! Come in, I’m here!”
Ludmila Panich
“Mom, you know, I was sleeping and I saw this same priest, but I couldn’t wake up or come to. He came to me and said that love is above everything in the world. And today he came to my bed and shouted: ‘Enough sleeping! Let’s go hang out!’”
Constantine Tsertsvadze, Nino Turmanidze
The doctors asked him in astonishment how he had been treated. And the patient replied that he had been treated with oil from the relics of the Georgian St. Gabriel (Urgebadze).
His straightforwardness, clairvoyance and great love attracted many people to him during his lifetime, and he did not abandon us after his death: he answers our prayers and appears to some people in visions.
At that time I considered myself a “very religious person”. I had my own opinion about everything, and therefore I took him for a madman and believed him to be in delusion. However, his eyes, full of love and sorrow, prevented me from asserting such a verdict.
In Georgia he is called “holy love and a miracle of the twentieth century.” In truth he was love—a huge holy love that warms the hearts of absolutely all of us today.
Archimandrite Kirion (Oniani)
Below we offer two extracts from the forthcoming publication, "St. Gabriel the Fool for Christ and Confessor" by Archimandrite Kirion (Oniani), that show the miraculous manner in which St. Gabriel first became acquainted with the Holy Gospel and his zeal for the truth of the Gospel teachings.
I was stunned and realized that Elder Gabriel doesn’t leave me or anyone who turns to him with faith and love. I have his icon in the most prominent place in my apartment. I pray, I sing his troparion, I consult with him and I thank God for sending us such a holy man in such difficult times.
Suddenly my son pointed at the icon and said: “They were in my dream… I saw this grandad… Who are they?!”
Elena Senkevich
After my mother’s funeral, I felt unwell. I was diagnosed with cancer of the heart muscle.
Tatiana Tsomaya
Elder Gabriel was physically completely different—unearthly, impressive. His words had power. He contained both an extraordinary simplicity and a kind of aristocracy. It’s impossible to describe all this in words.
Khatuna Rakviashvili
I had turned black and was lying under a white sheet on the floor with my hands bound with gauze. Then my mother fainted and my father went blind.
After his recovery Archil told me that when he was bedridden and couldn’t move, and had no strength for anything, he saw Elder Gabriel sitting at his bedside without leaving him. “I knew that he would help me. He sat next to me and looked at me with great love,” Archil related.
He had very strong prayer; he had great boldness before the Lord.
Anton was looking at the altar, at the priest who was communing people, and suddenly felt an oily liquid flowing down onto his hands. He looked down and saw that the cover of the book was streaming myrrh.
At some point he drew close to me, looked right into my eyes and said: “Revaz, burn what you have here, in your pocket!” And what I had in my pocket was a suicide note, written a few hours before, in which I said good-bye to my family.
It was not easy to drive through five borders, to endure many trials, to walk on foot between borders at the Three Sisters checkpoint at night… But we felt that Batiushka Gabriel was with us. He helped us and humbled us just as he did while he was yet alive.
And when they opened the trunk, one of the cops with a Caucasian accent said: “Brothers, you’re Monk Gabriel’s boys!” Immediately automatically answering, “Yes,” we blushed and were amazed at the same time. How could this cop know Elder Gabriel?
Abbess Ketevan (Kopaliani)
I first saw Fr. Gabriel on Rustaveli Avenue in the 1980s. Raising his hands to Heaven, he called out: “Georgians! Wake up and see what is happening in Georgia, what state the grave of St. Shushanik is in! Is the Metekhi Church really a place for a theater?!”
We offer our readers a selection of little known reminiscences and testimonies about St. Gabriel, which will help everybody discover the essence of the elder’s podvigs that are pouring out from his love-filled heart.
Tamuna Gochiashvili
By miracle our work on the icon was completed the day before Fr. Gabriel’s birthday, and on August 26 (his birthday) it was brought for blessing.
