About a Miracle of St. Gabriel (Urgebadze)
Khatuna
Rakviashvili
This
story occurred on October 14, 1998, on the feast of Svetitskhovloba in
Mtskheta, the ancient capital of Georgia. It is told by its protagonist,
George:
In
those difficult times, I was living with my family in Tbilisi. I was a drug
addict.
That
day, my friend who was going to celebrate Svetitskhovloba with his family
invited me to go along. I had done some heroin and I was pretty high. I was
indifferent to Church feasts then, so I agreed to go for the celebration of
Mtskhetoba.[1]
We
went to a concert and then to a restaurant. And when we were just getting ready
to head back, my friend’s wife, Tamara, said that Mtskheta had the grave of the
famous wonderworker Archimandrite Gabriel and that she wanted to go pray at his
grave. We had to agree, but we didn’t go into Samtavro Monastery itself, where
his grave was located in the courtyard at that time. I remember ironically
shouting after her:
“Light
a candle for me and ask him to save me!”
That
evening, as I was having some tea at home, a friend came and showed me that he
had some “excellent” heroin. I was already inebriated, but to refuse was
“beneath my dignity”…
I
don’t remember what happened next.
I was
dragged out of the kitchen. My parents were at home and called the ambulance.
The doctors unsuccessfully tried to help me. The first team was followed by the
second, then the third, the fourth… There was a whole convoy of ambulances
outside my building. My brother came running. Everyone was shouting. Each team
injected me with 5 milligrams of Narcan[2] (20 milligrams altogether!). Anyone
who knows about medicine knows that such a dose could resurrect the dead, but
it didn’t do me any good. Then they injected adrenaline into my heart and used
a defibrillator, but it was all in vain…
Forty-five
minutes passed after I died.
Four
teams of doctors tried in vain to help me…
Then
this happened about an hour later:
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. The door was open.
The neighbors were gathered on the landing. The women were crying. The doctors
had signed my death certificate. Some of them quietly said: “This isn’t the
first young man to die from this damned drug. How long can this go on…?”
St. Gabriel (Urgebadze)
St. Gabriel (Urgebadze)
Just
then, Manana, a religious neighbor from the third floor who was a parishioner
of Samtavro Monastery, quietly entered the open door of the room where I was
lying. She removed the sheet from my face and anointed my forehead in the form
of a cross with oil from Fr. Gabriel’s grave. She was hoping it would at least
somehow help me before the Almighty in the other world…
And I…
immediately jumped up with my bandaged hands!
The
young doctor who signed my death certificate fainted.
An
incredible commotion arose. They immediately took me to the hospital and
examined me for three days.
… I
still have the death certificate.
It’s
been twenty years since the repose of the great Elder Gabriel,[3] but the
miracles—first at his grave, and now at his relics—have never stopped.
Khatuna
Rakviashvili
Translation
by Jesse Dominick
Pravoslavie.ru
11/2/2021
[1] On
October 14, the Georgian Church celebrates the ancient Svetitskhoveli
Cathedral, home to Christ’s wonderworking mantle. Th city of Mtskheta, where
the cathedral is located, is celebrated on the same day.—Trans.
[2]
Narcan is a medicine used to block the effects of narcotics.—Trans.
[3] This article was written in 2015. St. Gabriel reposed in 1995.—Trans.
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