The Venerable Confessor Gabriel (Urgebadze)
A few years ago, I had a difficult legal case, in which Father Gabriel (Urgebadze) helped me a great deal. And now, when I had similar problems, I again turned to this wonderful saint for help. Providentially, on the way to the lawyer’s I unexpectedly met a religious woman who was going there on the same case. She and I found plenty to talk about, and I learned that she was a greatly devoted to Elder Gabriel. The woman told me about Father Gabriel’s help in her life. Her story amazed me so much that, with her permission, I decided to write it down and share with readers.
In the 1990s our family—my husband, myself and our small child—unfortunately had to leave our native Abkhazia and become refugees. We went to Russia, where we stayed in the Komi Republic.1 Our second child was born there. The children were growing, life was getting back to normal, but suddenly I learned that I was pregnant with a third baby. And everything would have been fine, but the doctors who provided prenatal care began to scare me a lot. They said that my baby had very severe pathologies and an abortion was urgently needed. The doctors insisted, but I really did not want to have an abortion, even for medical reasons, and as a last resort I decided to go to church and pray to God for help. In the town where we lived, the first church had just been built. And I, who had never set foot in church before, came there and began to ask the Lord to help me not to terminate my pregnancy and give birth to a healthy baby.
After the prayer I felt much calmer, and I had hope that all would be fine. I stopped going to the doctors, who continued to insist on an abortion, but I regularly came to church, prayed, and as a result I gave birth to an absolutely healthy baby. Then, during my integration into Church life, I learned about the saints, including Georgian ones, one of whom was Father Gabriel (Urgebadze). A few years later, when we moved to Georgia, the elder was already one of the saints dearest to my heart, and I often prayed to him.
Many years passed. One day, while going to work the usual way and crossing the street, to my great astonishment I saw Elder Gabriel right in front of me. He looked exactly as he did on the icon, although his eyes were not brown, as in real life, but blue. Father Gabriel looked at me and said: “All will be fine.” And then he added, “You have three children, and I have four.”
Frozen in the middle of the road and listening to the saint’s words attentively, I was not looking around at all, which the elder warned me about. “Be carefull, a car is coming!” Looking in the direction of his gaze, I saw a car approaching me and took a few steps, and when I turned around, there was already no one beside me. The elder seemed to have vanished into thin air! Dumbfounded, I just stood on the spot for a while, and then continued on my way, pondering over why the Lord had sent me the elder right there, in the middle of the road, and what his words “all will be fine” meant.
And I soon figured out the meaning of his words, “You have three children, and I have four.” The fact is that I would have had four children had I not had my abortion of the first. During his lifetime the wise elder often allegorically pointed out to a person the sins he had committed, trying to attribute them to himself, as evidenced by those who knew him personally. Even now Father Gabriel tried to remind me about my past sin in this manner.
A month passed after the miraculous appearance of the elder to me. Every time I went that way to and from work, I kept remembering my meeting with the elder. And one day, opposite the site where the elder had appeared to me, I suddenly saw a very badly twisted pole on the side of the road, a tree growing nearby in the same condition, and fragments of metal on the ground below. I asked passers-by what had happened here, and they told me: “There was a terrible accident here, a man lost control and crashed into a pole and a nearby tree at full speed. Everybody who was in the car was probably killed, because it is impossible to survive such an accident.” I grieved for the crash victims and went home.
When I came home, I was horrified to learn that my nephew—for whom I had been very worried at that time and for whom I had been praying hard to all the saints, including my beloved Elder Gabriel—had been in terrible accident. I instantly remembered the car crash on the site where I had met the elder, and I went all cold.
“Did it happen there?” I gave the name of the street.
“Yes, it was there,” was the reply.
“And how is my nephew?” I wondered with great fear.
“Thank God, he’s fine, but his car has been totaled! Both he and we are simply astounded by how he walked out unscathed, because in such an accident he would have had zero chance of surviving!”
And it dawned on me. “That’s why Elder Gabriel appeared to me at that very place! That’s what his words, ‘all will be fine’, meant! And that’s who saved my nephew from certain death!”
From the bottom of my heart I thanked the elder for such a miraculous rescue of my nephew and that, foreseeing what was going to happen, he deigned to appear to me and tried to comfort me, saying that everything would be fine with my nephew!
Holy Father Gabriel, do not leave us without your intercession, keep us in all the paths of our lives and pray to God for us!
