Gabriel the Iberian

Venerable Gabriel the Iberian (Gavriil Ivirul) was a Georgian monk of the Iviron Monastery on Mount Athos in the tenth century, venerated as a saint. His name refers to his origin from the Kingdom of Iberia. Not many details of his life are known. His feast is kept on 13 May by the Romanian Church, and by the Georgian Church on 12/25 July; the sources do not agree about the Greek Church: the English source gives 12/25 July for it as well, the Romanian one gives 13 May.

His life

Gabriel became a monk at the Georgian monastery of Iviron and lived there during the time when the community was led by another Georgian saint, John the Iberian. He led a strict and rough life: he wore clothes of animal hair, drank only water and was silent almost all the time, avoiding talk of worldly things and speaking only of spiritual matters and of God. Eager for solitude, in summer he retired to the wild mountains around the monastery, where he lived in a cave, and in winter he returned to the monastery.

The Romanian source relates that in that time, of controversies that were to lead to the Great Schism and of conflict between Greek and Georgian monks, Gabriel is said to have made friends with a Latin monk, Leo, who had come from Rome to Athos and was visiting Iviron. Leo stayed several days in a cell near his. They did not speak the same language, but at night they went out together to pray and then conversed in the common language of prayer.

The finding of the Portaitissa icon

The best known event of his life is the finding of the icon of the Mother of God Portaitissa (Panagia Portaitissa), which, according to the Vita, he took out of the sea when he was already old. The saint's lives say that several Athonite monks saw the icon floating upright on the sea, "in a pillar of fire", and when they drew near in a boat the icon moved away from them. The monks prayed to the Mother of God, protector of Athos, and after three days of prayer the monk Gabriel had a vision in which the Mother of God told him that he was the only monk worthy to take the icon out of the water. Obeying her command, Gabriel went down to the shore and "stepped on the water as on dry land", bringing the icon to shore and then to the Iviron monastery.

The Iviron monks carried the icon with great honour into the monastery and placed it on the altar, but the next day the icon was found on the wall of the gate. Believing that one of the brothers had taken it out of the church, they brought it back to the altar, but the following day it was found in the same place above the gate, and this was repeated several times. The Mother of God appeared again to Gabriel and told him not to bring the icon into the monastery church, as was the custom, but to set it above the entrance gate of the monastery. The Romanian source adds that this showed her special protection of the monks of that monastery. That is why the icon is called "Portaitissa" (the doorkeeper, or gatekeeper).

Gabriel died at the end of the tenth century and was venerated as a saint by the Georgian monks and other Orthodox monks. An akathist to the venerable one was written by a Georgian monk of the monastery in the early nineteenth century. In 1985 a chapel was set up in the cave where he lived.