Elder Gabriel Urgebadze: prophecies about Russia

From many countries pilgrims go to the ancient capital of Georgia, the city of Mtskheta, where the relics of the elder Gabriel Urgebadze, the greatest spiritual ascetic of the 20th century, rest in the Samtavro convent. In life, the elder's authority was so high that after a blessed death that followed in November 1995, it took only seventeen years (an unusually short period) to glorify him in the face of the saints of the Georgian Orthodox Church.

Childhood and youth of the future holy ascetic

Elder Gabriel Urgebadze, whose prophecies are so worried by many people today, was born on August 26, 1929 in Tbilisi, and in the holy baptism, performed in the church of the Great Martyr Varvara, was given the name of Goderdzi. His father, Vasily Urgebadze, like many people of those years, was a convinced communist, but his life was short and tragic. Sedva was two years old when his father died at the hands of unknown assassins.

His widow, the mother of the young Goderdzi, Varvara Urgebadze, unlike her deceased husband, was a very devout woman. Looking ahead, we note that the Lord sent her a long and pious life. Having accepted monastic tonsure with the name Anna and having survived her son for five years, she died in the same monastery where his holy relics are now buried. Goderdzi was not the only child in the family. In addition to him, the elder brother Mikhail and Sister Emma grew up. Subsequently, they were joined by one-half sister Juliette, born in the second marriage of her mother.

Gabriel Urgebadze, now deeply revered at home and abroad, began his religious path in his earliest childhood. According to the memoirs of those who knew him in his youth, he was still a child of silence and a tendency to seclusion. Ordinary children's games of their peers Goderdzi preferred reading spiritual books and visiting the church.

The First Steps to Christ

Curious is history, which served as the impetus for the beginning of the manifestation of this propensity. She is known today from the memories of her mother's friends. One day the boy witnessed a quarrel between two women, during which one of them exclaimed: "You crucified me, like Christ!". The meaning of these words was incomprehensible to the child, and adults, to whom he asked for clarification, advised him to apply to the church.

So it happened that the Lord gave the first instruction to the future saint not the abbot of the temple where Goderdzi came for the first time, but the church watchman. He in an accessible manner told the boy about the great sacrifice of Christ and advised the boy to read the Gospel. Saving on school breakfasts, he saved up the right amount and, having bought a holy book in the church shop, did not part with it for the rest of his life.

Even at school age, the elder Gavriil Urgebadze became known among those who surrounded him with their pilgrimages to the monasteries of Bethany and Martkopi, and also partly to manifestations of foolhood that met with approval and sympathy. Even then, the glory of a man was revealed to him, to whom the Lord reveals secret secrets, and during the war years, despite a very young age, many people whose relatives went to the front addressed him for spiritual help.

Faith in God, equated to insanity

In 1949, the twenty-year-old Goderdzi was called up for military service, but even there he did not break with religion, which was very risky during the years of total atheism. Being part of the border section stationed in Batumi, he secretly visited the church of St. Nicholas from the authorities, observed all the prescribed posts of the church and tried to conduct spiritual conversations with his colleagues. However, the secret, as is known, sooner or later, becomes obvious.

In order to avoid trouble and accusations in the low political level of the personnel, the command of the unit hastened to commissate the soldier who was objectionable to him in connection with the allegedly psychic disorder observed by him. The young man was handed over to the civil authorities, who in those years also looked askance at religiously minded people, like their military colleagues.

As a result, Goderdzi was sent to a psychiatric hospital for examination, where the main and, apparently, the only symptom of insanity was the vision of the Mother of God, which he had in his childhood. However, this was enough, and quite a young man was recognized as mentally ill, as a result of which the issue of employment for him became an insoluble problem.

The beginning of church ministry

The pension paid to him for disability was so small that it was not enough even for the most modest life, and the elder Gabriel Urgebadze found himself in an extremely difficult situation. However, the Lord, as is known, does not leave with mercy those who believe in him. To his faithful servant, he sent help in the person of the Georgian Catholicos-Patriarch Melchizedek III, who learned about his misadventures, and ordered to take a job in Tbilisi's Sionsky Cathedral. There, finally finding himself among people close to him in spirit, Goderdzi performed at first the duties of a watchman, and then a psalm-reader.

His interest in spiritual literature, manifested in his childhood, has borne fruit. Very knowledgeable in theological issues and strengthened in the faith, he was ordained a deacon in January 1955, and a month later in the Kutaisi monastery Motsameta was tonsured as a monk. Henceforth, the humble servant of God Goderdzi was called Gabriel in honor of St. Gabriel of Athos, who miraculously passed through the water and carried the Iberian icon of the Mother of God to the shore.

In the last days of February 1955, a newly ordained monk Gabriel was ordained a priest, that is, he took the priestly priest, who allowed him to perform six of the seven ordinances ordained in Orthodoxy - communion, baptism, wedding, etc.

During the next five years, the elder Gavriil Urgebadze performed obedience as a priest of the Sion Cathedral, where he once began as a church watchman. Then he spent two years in the monastery of Bethany, and after his closing he returned to Tbilisi, where he served in the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity.

Unauthorized construction of the chapel

To this period of his life is a curious episode, the memory of which has survived to this day. Back in the fifties, after returning from the army, he began in the yard of his house to build a small chapel from the abandoned material, which the local authorities repeatedly destroyed. Avoid serious penalties for arbitrariness he helped then a certificate of insanity.

Finally, they waved at him, and Father Gabriel was able to finish it. He did everything with his own hands, and even picked up icons on local landfills, and then, after restoring, he put in self-made salaries. In the mid-sixties his work was completed, and since that time the chapel built by him stands in the courtyard of house No. 11 on Tetritskaroy Street of his native Tbilisi.

The challenge thrown by the imperial ideology

However, in those years, not everything was going well in the life of Father Gabriel. A striking example of this can be the incident that took place during the May Day demonstration in 1965, when, in front of everyone, he set fire to a twelve-meter portrait of Lenin, thus expressing his protest against the worship of anyone but God.

A furious crowd of people attacked him, as a result of which the elder Gabriel Urgebadze was beaten and then taken to the city department of the KGB. On that day on his body doctors counted eighteen fractures.

The same medical certificate of insanity helped to avoid prison. The role was also played by a wide international response, which, thanks to a group of dissidents, took his cause. After holding the rebellious hieromonk for three months in a psychiatric hospital, the authorities were forced to write it out with confirmation of the previous diagnosis.

The victim of betrayal

The incident had consequences, forever left a shameful spot on the conscience of a number of Georgian church hierarchs. To please the authorities, they forbade the abbots to let Father Gabriel into the temples entrusted to them, and in case of rebellion they were ordered to expel or resort to the help of the police.

It was a terrible and despicable blow inflicted on the same by their brothers-co-religionists, who knew that the holy elder Gabriel Urgebadze, who could spend days without food and sleep, could not live without church services, and especially without the sacrament of holy gifts. Eyewitnesses said that such a low betrayal plunged him into confusion, and he wept with impotence, believing his sorrow only to the closest people.

Samovroev monastery Samtavro

In the early eighties, persecuted by the official church and secular authorities, Father Gabriel found refuge in the Samtavro Convent. The extreme asceticism, within which his life was passing, impressed even the nuns who had seen them.

According to their memoirs, the elder Archimandrite Gavriil Urgebadze settled in the premises of the former chicken coop, thoroughly blown through the winter winds, and flatly refused to take from them any warm clothes. Often he could be seen standing barefoot on the ice-covered and snow-covered monastery yard.

At first, such behavior aroused the bewilderment of the sisters, but soon they became convinced that behind the outward foolishness lies the great feat of humility. But the main thing about which the residents of the monastery testify is the inexhaustible love that the elder Gavriil Urgebadze literally shone.

The book "The Diadem of the Elder", written about him several years after his death, and included the memories of the most diverse people who knew the holy ascetic, is full of confirmations of their words. He did not want anything for himself personally and all generously gave to others.

The death of Gabriel's father and the subsequent canonization

In the last years of his life the monk suffered from dropsy, which became the cause of his death, which occurred on November 2, 1995. Fulfilling the last will of the deceased, the body was betrayed to the earth not in a coffin, but only wrapped with a simple mat. Also, the elder described the place of his repose himself, choosing a monastery where the educator of Georgia, the holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Nina, once worked.

It is possible to say with full certainty that in the eighties and the entire first half of the nineties one of the most revered religious authorities in the republic was precisely the elder Gabriel Urgebadze. The book, mentioned above, contains many indubitable proofs. It contains authentic testimonies of miracles performed through his prayers.

But even more of them began to happen on his grave, to which after the funeral the stream of pilgrims did not run out. It became obvious that even after his death, the elder Gavriil Urgebadze did not leave his admirers. Prayer, spoken with faith and hope (as he taught during his lifetime), brought people a quick and palpable cure.

All this was the reason that in December 2012 the decision of the Holy Synod of the Georgian Orthodox Church yesterday's exile was canonized in the face of the Reverend. At the same time, a well-known icon of the elder Gabriel Urgebadze was written today, and an akathist was also composed. It should be noted that this is a unique case when the time interval between death and glorification was only seventeen years, usually it includes several decades, and sometimes even centuries.

The teachings of the elder Gabriel Urgebadze

It is known that in the days of his earthly life the monk did not keep records, but generously shared his thoughts with all those who came to him. Many of those who heard his words saved them in their diaries, and thanks to this, all that Gabriel Urgebadze wanted to tell them became the property of millions of people. "Diadem of the Elder" is not just a collection of memories, it is in many ways a textbook of a truly Christian life.

It is enough to recall only some of his instructions. For example, Father Gabriel taught not to fear death itself, which, he says, is nothing but a transfiguration of a person who has stepped into another world, but a court of God waiting for each of us beyond the bounds of eternity. For greater expressiveness, he resorts to a comparison, citing as an example the excitement felt in the face of the ordinary institute examiner, and after that he offers to present those feelings that will overwhelm us in the face of the Eternal Judge.

As already mentioned, all those who knew the elder testified of his boundless love for people without distinction of their personal qualities and social belonging. It is to this, so rare in our days, one of his best known instructions is dedicated to quality. Father Gabriel taught that love is not an innate talent, but an art that should be studied persistently, but one who can understand it will gain the highest happiness.

Let's give just one more of his statement, this time referring to those who, having renounced the vain world, set foot on the path of monastic life. The Elder disproves the established opinion that, having shut up in the monastery, the monk should turn all his thoughts to God only, ignoring what is happening around. He literally says that there is no salvation for that monk, who does not have a heartache about the ailments of his people. In other words, the servant of God must remain a patriot and citizen.

Elder Gabriel Urgebadze, prophecies about the coming days

But not only the teachings, backed up by their own life example, I remember the residents of the republic of their illustrious compatriot. Among the spiritual legacy left by Elder Gabriel Urgebadze, the prophecies about Russia and Georgia occupy a very special place, and today, more than ever, they are becoming the object of universal attention.

The fact that in them he predicted the future of both republics, appears from his own words. He said that they are both the cross on which he takes a voluntary crucifixion. True, to be absolutely accurate, it should be noted that it was said: "Georgia and half of Russia ...", but this, he apparently wanted to emphasize that the predictions mostly relate to his homeland.

The Georgian elder Gabriel Urgebadze largely compared his prophecies to the fact that St. John the Evangelist spoke on the pages of the Apocalypse two thousand years ago . Like the holy apostle of the Lord, he predicted the coming into the world of the forces of the Antichrist, but at a much closer time than the surface observer might seem.

Turning to both contemporaries and future generations, the elder did not try to instill in them a sense of despair, because he unlimitedly believed in the omnipotence of God and the ultimate victory of the forces of light and good, but he tried to set and protect against fatal errors.

In particular, he warned that there would come a time when the ministers of the Antichrist would begin preaching evangelical truths in churches, deliberately distorting them with their misinterpretations, and thereby try to substitute the true faith with its apparent similarity. Elder Gabriel Urgebadze urged everyone, before opening the ears to someone's sermons, to make sure that the shepherd's deeds correspond to those high words that he pronounces.

This reverend brings us back to the gospel lines, where a similar thought sounded in the mouth of Jesus Christ. In later times many Russian saints warned about the same thing, but the elder Gavriil Urgebadze added prophecies about Russia and Georgia with one completely unexpected prediction, which, apparently, he had invested in some kind of allegorical meaning.

He said that there will come a time when people wanting to escape from the networks of the devil (and they have exactly 666) will be waiting for salvation from space, which, according to their calculations, must be brought with them by some alien beings. But such expectations will be in vain, since these newcomers, according to the old man, will themselves be servants of the enemy of the human race.

It is hardly necessary to understand this prophecy in the literal sense - the Monk Gabriel was far from science fiction. Obviously, the solution of his words should be sought in some allegory. It is not excluded that in this way he tried to warn against hopes for outside assistance in the development of Russia. Even the Lord does not save us from labor, but through prayer sends the necessary strength and intelligence to carry them out. The devil, on the contrary, trying to prevent a person from useful deed, sends him unrealizable hopes and dreams. Russia, according to the old man, is waiting for the light of God's truth, but the path to it is impossible without reliance on Christ.

Specifically, about the fate of Georgia, the elder said that she would rise, like Lazarus, but not before the crowned king rises at her head. Let us leave the interpretation of this prophecy to the current Georgian politicians.

Seniority is the spiritual support of the church

Nowadays, when more and more people turn to the church, seeking in it their spiritual support, utterance of the holy fathers who have acquired the grace of God receives special urgency. Their wisdom is that bread, which, when one tastes, the person who has behind him the rich experience of the Christian life, and the yesterday's neophyte gains strength. The elders Gabriel Urgebadze, Serafim Vyritsky, Ambrose Optina, and many of their predecessors are the foundation on which the building of the Church of Christ stands unshakably.