Gabriel of Arkhangelsk

Holy Hieromartyr Gabriel of Arkhangelsk, a priest, by family name Arkhangelsky, was born on 25 March 1890 in the village of Urleika in the Petrovsk district of the Saratov province, in the family of a psalm reader, and died shot on 4 September 1937. His name was Gabriel Ivanovich Arkhangelsky.

He studied at the church school of Petrovsk, and in 1910 he was appointed psalm reader at the church of Saint Nicholas in the village of Guselka, in the Kamyshin district. In 1917 he finished the Saratov seminary, was ordained deacon, and in 1918 priest, and served in the churches of the Penza diocese. On 29 November 1929 he was arrested together with the servants of the church of the Nativity of the Mother of God in the village of Kanaevka and on 12 February 1930 sentenced to five years in a camp. After serving his sentence, from 1934 he again served in churches of the Penza diocese.

On 10 January 1936 Bishop Theodore Smirnov of Penza, whom Father Gabriel had known from his seminary studies, sent him to the Protection church in the village of Pokrovo-⁠Berezovka. In the church plundered by the godless no service vessels remained. With the bishop's blessing, Father Gabriel bought glass vessels and began to serve the Liturgy. It seems that the church was soon closed. On 5 April 1936 Father Gabriel left for Penza and, with the blessing of Bishop Theodore, served as psalm reader in the church of Saint Mitrophan, where the episcopal see was. He served memorial services at the Myrrh-⁠bearers' cemetery and urged the parishioners of the Renovationist Dormition church to come under the omophorion of the lawful bishop, which the authorities regarded as anti-⁠Soviet propaganda.

On 18 October 1936 he was arrested together with Bishop Theodore and four priests, on the charge of belonging to a counterrevolutionary organization of churchmen, and imprisoned in the Penza prison. At the interrogations he denied the charges. On 10 April 1937 the case was sent to the Special Collegium of the Kuibyshev regional court, returned for further investigation, and then set again for hearing on 31 July. On 7 August the special troika of the NKVD Directorate of the Kuibyshev region sentenced Bishop Theodore and the priests arrested with him to the supreme penalty. Saint Gabriel was shot on 4 September 1937 and buried in an unknown common grave. In August 2000 he was numbered among the saints by the Jubilee Council of Bishops. He is commemorated, according to the Azbyka page, on 12 June and on 4 September.