1/31/2016
Constantine Tsertsvadze
It’s been almost thirteen years since that day and our Alexander hasn’t had any attacks—his asthma has disappeared.
He was a great elder, who tried with all his might to bring men to God.
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!”
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).
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.
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?!”
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.
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.
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?
Today, December 20, we celebrate anniversary of the canonization of St. Gabriel (Urgebadze) of Georgia. The creators of the film, “I Am Waiting for You at Samtavro,” have given OrthoChristian.com the great pleasure of presenting it to our readers in its entirety, along with this written introduction.
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.
“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!”
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.
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.
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.
