Gabriel Mtsire

Saint Gabriel Mtsire (Gabriel the Younger) was a Georgian scholar, writer and calligrapher, who died in 1802. He was born in Tbilisi and earned his living as a tailor. For a man of high spirituality and honesty, the noisy life of the city was hard to bear, so one day he left everything, went to David Gareja, to the desert of Saint John the Baptist, and became a monk.

In the monastery he devoted himself to the work of a writer, and his labour left its mark on Georgian spiritual literature: he compiled several liturgical and moral collections, gathered from works of well-⁠known theologians, and wrote original works, among them a symbolic interpretation of the hierarchical Liturgy, a treatise on the canons of the Sixth Ecumenical Council, spiritual narratives, the life of Venerable Onesiphorus, and a short account of Porphyry. He was known for labour, fasting, prayer, love and service to the brethren.

One day, in the days of Great Lent, a senior deacon from Tbilisi came to the desert to struggle; after a time he longed for his family and decided to return to Tbilisi. Gabriel accompanied him, but on the way Lezgins came upon them and killed him. The brethren carried the body to the monastery and buried it there. He is commemorated on 17 March (new style); in the Georgian Church, which keeps the Julian calendar, the day falls on 30 March.