Gabriel Preobrazhensky

Holy Hieromartyr Gabriel Preobrazhensky, a priest, was born on 21 March 1878 in the churchyard-⁠parish of Kotelnya in the Ostrov district of the Pskov province, in the family of the priest Stephen Vasilyevich Preobrazhensky. He died shot on 13 February 1919.

In 1897 he finished the church school of Porkhov and served as psalm reader, first at the church of Kupuy, Velikiye Luki district, then at that of Vrev, Ostrov district, and taught singing at the Vrev school. On 31 August 1903 he was ordained deacon at the church of the Nativity of the Mother of God in Dubrovna, Porkhov district, and in 1911 priest at the church of the Forerunner in Aprosyevo, Novorzhev district. The parish numbered seventy-⁠nine villages, with four and a half thousand inhabitants. Father Gabriel taught the Law of God at the first-⁠class ministerial school in Aprosyevo and was head of the parish schools of Borovsko-⁠Aprosyevo and Novo-⁠Usadishche in Bezhanitsy, being teacher of religion there too. In 1916 he took part in the congress of delegates of the Velikiye Luki school district.

In 1919, in a time of persecution of the Russian Church, the priest Gabriel Preobrazhensky was arrested. On 13 February 1919 he was sentenced to death and shot. He is commemorated on 26 February.