St. Gabriel (Urgebadze) St. Gabriel (Urgebadze) is an elder with a kind smile, a daring saint who won the hearts all over the world with his love. He is known, venerated and admired by everyone: scientists and ordinary people, clergy and laity, parishioners and unchurched people. It was also the case in the saint’s lifetime—people who knew him personally considered him a great spirit-bearing elder, a kind and loving pastor, a tireless toiler of God who guided people’s souls to salvation. But there were also those who called him a “city lunatic”, a “drunkard”, and “insane”, and they only became convinced years later that he was a true ascetic and a “fool-for-Christ” who possessed numerous spiritual gifts.
We offer readers the memories of the elder’s spiritual daughter Marina Kankava who has shared her experience of personal communication with this saint of our time.
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I first met Elder Gabriel in 1991. From the very first meeting some transformation happened in me. It was as if his love had entered my heart and remained there forever. He once said, “The Lord sent me to Georgia to preach love.” Indeed, Elder Gabriel was a preacher of love—he radiated love. After meeting Elder Gabriel, I visited him almost every day.
One day my friend who had introduced me to batiushka could not go with me to Samtavro Convent and I decided to visit the elder on my own. On the way to the convent I kept thinking: “When I arrive at Samtavro, I’ll go upstairs to his cell, but he won’t recognize me. He’ll probably ask, ‘Who are you? What do you want? Why are you here?’”
Not knowing what to say in this case, I went upstairs to his cell anyway, said a prayer at the door, but he didn’t answer, which meant he wouldn’t let me in. I looked at my watch: it was about half past eleven. I thought that if the elder did not come out before noon, I would go back to Tbilisi. And just imagine! I was about to leave when Elder Gabriel came out of his cell. The watch showed twelve sharp! I gladly came up to him to get his blessing, but before I could say a word the saint asked the very questions that had tossed my mind on the way to him: “Who are you? What do you want? Why are you here?” Not knowing what to say, I was about to leave, but I couldn’t. It was as if some invisible force had bound my whole body so that I couldn’t move. The elder suddenly turned to me and, with extraordinary love in his eyes and with gestures characteristic of him, asked me, “Marina, how are you?” I was delighted and surprised at the same time. I had feared he wouldn’t accept me and wouldn’t recognize me, but it turned out that he even remembered my name!
Then batiushka invited me into his cell where I became an eyewitness of his miracle for the first time. He gave me a book, The Lives of the Holy Fathers, and told me to read it aloud to him. I opened the book, but I couldn’t make out the text because it was dark in the cell. Suddenly, the cell lit up as if someone had turned on a floodlight. I thought the light was on, so I raised my head and looked at the light bulb, but it wasn’t on! At that moment I was just astounded and couldn’t analyze what had happened, but now I understand that it was Divine light. The light that Elder Gabriel and everything around him shone with.
Marina Kankava
One day the elder gave me a prayer rope and blessed me not to take it off, not to pray with it, but simply wear it as an ornament. A few days later my friends and I got into a terrible accident: our car overturned three times, but none of us was injured, we didn’t even have a single scratch—only the cross on the prayer rope (the elder’s gift) was broken. When I came to the convent the next time, Fr. Gabriel blessed me and said, “The Lord has saved you! I saw you do three ‘somersaults’ on the car as clearly as I see you now.”
Once during the Nativity Fast my friends and I went to a birthday party. We believed that since the Nativity Fast is not as strict as Lent, we could relax and enjoy ourselves. We entertained ourselves with music, played the drum, sang, danced, and, smiling, said to each other, “If Elder Gabriel saw what we are doing, what would he say?” The birthday party and the fun were over, we went home, and the following day we travelled to Samtavro. No sooner had we said a prayer and crossed the threshold of his cell than batiushka looked at us significantly and said, as if not addressing us, “Yes... the Nativity Fast is so merry: someone plays the drum, someone else sings, and someone else dances.” We were stupefied and once again convinced that Elder Gabriel could invisibly be present wherever he wanted, and that it was impossible to conceal something from him.
He was a true ascetic who possessed amazing spiritual gifts and, most importantly, great love. You could approach him at any time with any request, and there was not a single case when he denied people his attention and sympathy. I really loved it when he “played the fool”. In these moments he was cheerful, strict, funny, and serious at the same time. When he feigned “foolishness” and preached simultaneously, you understood, or rather felt, that he was an otherworldly monk. Then his face and eyes would become so transparent that you could see all the capillary vessels.
There was the following episode. I came to visit Fr. Gabriel, went into his cell, and he told me, while “play-acting”: “I have a bad stomach. I am desperate to eat some hash. Now go and get me some beef rennet and shindal.1 But don’t buy beef legs—I don’t want them. Only rennet and shindal.”
I returned to Tbilisi, went around four markets there, but could not find anywhere what Elder Gabriel had ordered me to buy. All sellers sold the ingredients necessary for cooking hash with legs. Very tired and sad, hardly had I left the market when an old man approached me and asked me, “Please buy this for hash—you won’t regret it! I only have rennet and shindal.” I was very glad to have bought everything Fr. Gabriel had told me, returned to the convent and gave the rennet and shindal to Elder Gabriel. But he said artistically, “Good of you that you’ve bought this, but I don’t want it anymore. The Patriarch visited me and brought me a ready-made hash.”
I went to see Elder Gabriel almost every day, and my father didn’t like it. He was afraid that I would become a nun. One day he forbade me to go to Elder Gabriel, but I went all the same. When I entered his cell, the saint wondered:
“Marina, how are you? Does your father scold you for visiting me?”
I froze in surprise, and the elder proceeded:
“The Lord has told me that He will sort everything out. Don’t worry—your father won’t argue with you anymore.”
When I came back home, I saw my father praying at the icons and holding a Bible in his hands. From that time on he himself reminded me to go to Samtavro Convent.
Fr. Gabriel couldn’t stand being praised. After doing a good deed, he would immediately start “playing the fool”—he would humiliate himself before others and pretend to be weak.
Back then, everybody perceived it the way he wanted them to. It was only years later that the Lord revealed to the people who had surrounded batiushka with whom they had to do, had been next to, and had simply met in their lives “by chance”.
Afterwards, everyone gradually became convinced of his wisdom. Unfortunately, most of those people had misunderstood him and had not accepted him in his lifetime. His eyes shone with love. And he primarily spoke about love—that love is above all the canons and that in the end times people will be saved through love, kindness and humility. He often taught that if a person has faith, no fear can overcome him and the Lord will never forsake him. He often repeated: “It is not the Lord Who abandons you, but you walk away from God. Hell is separation from God.”
I would go to him from Tbilisi on foot. When it was time for me to travel back home, he would predict, “A red car will stop today. You can get in it and go without worry.” And the elder’s words always came true. It was in the 1990s, and the political situation in the country was tense; there were no streetlights, the streets were dark, and, of course, it was unsafe to get in a car with a stranger. But when batiushka blessed me, everything went smoothly, quietly, and there was no feeling of fear.
One day he said, “Don’t get in any car today, or you’ll be killed! Take the bus!” I was scared and, of course, I was ready to fulfill his blessing, but I didn’t have enough money for a ticket. Back then, money was given to the driver when exiting the transport. Since the elder had warned me of the danger and blessed me to travel to Tbilisi by bus, I got on the bus and started pondering on the question of how to justify myself to the driver for not being able to pay the full fare. There were five women on the bus, including me. We reached Tbilisi. I waited until the others got out, then approached the driver with slow steps, handed him the incomplete fare and was about to apologize and justify myself. But the driver told me: “That old man who just got off the bus paid for your fare.” But there had been no old man on the bus! There had been only five of us women! Stunned, I alighted and realized that the old man in question was Elder Gabriel! He could invisibly appear wherever he wanted.
The saint always instructed people that you should believe with all your heart and thank God. The Lord will not forsake a believer, but the most important thing is to learn love for God and your neighbor. He who preserves love will be saved. He pronounced “thank God!” in such a way that I had never heard such an articulation in my life, imbued with great love—a feeling that cannot be described in words.
The elder always struggled with vanity and pride and tried to kill these vices in every person, be it a layman or a clergyman, an experienced parishioner or a casual visitor to church. He had an individual approach to all of them. Fr. Gabriel felt who could endure what kind of test or rebuke and saw through people.
Before the beginning of the Dormition Fast, batiushka blessed me to observe the fast strictly and to abstain from any food on Wednesdays and Fridays. At first, I thought I wouldn’t cope, since during the fast I was to stay at my relatives’ cottage in Racha,2 where fabulous meals were served every day with lots of meat and dairy products. In spite of everything, I fasted without temptations, so no one knew about it. On returning from Racha, I hurried to the convent. I was filled with joy and pride, lauding myself for my “spiritual fortitude and willpower”. Elder Gabriel looked at me with his penetrating gaze and said, “Do you think you’ve accomplished a great feat?” I had been waiting for his praise and confirmation of what a “faithful and admirable Christian” I was, but Elder Gabriel said this instead!... At first I was surprised, but then I realized that Fr. Gabriel killed my pride this way and showed me that I should not let this vice into my heart, which drains your spirit and makes you vulnerable to various sinful passions.
When Elder Gabriel passed away, I couldn’t believe it. I hoped that he would get up, as before, when he would “play-act”—he would lie down in the coffin pretending to be dead, and then stand up with his arms raised to heaven. I thought that the elder would “rise from the dead” again and could not imagine my life without him, without his instructions and practical lessons of virtue necessary for salvation. But even today we still feel his invisible, and sometimes even visible, presence. He does not leave us, and indeed never leaves a single person who turns to him with faith and love, who loves his neighbor, and does good. He would often say, “The Lord requires of us both the heart and good deeds. ‘The good you have done to your neighbor you have done to Me,’ (cf. Mt. 25:40) the Lord teaches. And if prayer is not followed by good deeds, it is dead.”
I believe that everyone who communicated with the elder went through the “academy” of love. Today, he blesses all of us, the whole world, and every human being with this love, because his love burned, burns, and will burn like an inextinguishable Heavenly icon lamp.
