Saint Gabriel of Białystok

Gabriel of Białystok (Russian: Гавриил Белостокский, romanized: Gavriil Belostoksky; Polish: Gabriel Białostocki), also known as Gabriel of Zabłudów (Polish: Gabriel Zabłudowski; alternatively Gavrila or Gavriil; April 2 [O.S. March 22] 1684 – April 20, 1690), is a child saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church. The story of his death is considered by some authors, specially from the Jewish community, as an example of antisemitic blood libel. His feast day is held on April 20 (of the Julian Calendar, which equates to May 3 of the Gregorian Calendar). According to tradition, six-year-old Gabriel was kidnapped from his home in the village of Zwierki (13 km from Zabłudów, Grodno Uezd, Grand Duchy of Lithuania; today's Poland) during the Jewish Passover, while his parents, pious Orthodox Christians Peter and Anastasia Govdel, were working in a nearby field. Shutko, a Jewish arendator of Zverki, was accused of taking the boy to Białystok, piercing him with sharp objects and draining his blood for nine days, before bringing the dead body back to Zverki and dumping it in a local field. After the discovery of his body, Gabriel was buried in Zverki, in an area of the local cemetery where child plague-fatalities would later be interred. In a funeral of 1720, the grave was accidentally unearthed and the body was found to be supernaturally incorruptibile; the remains were then transferred to the crypt of Zverki's Orthodox church. Gabriel's cult grew over the years, largely due to reputed healings at his grave. In 1746, the relics were transferred to Zabłudów and then onto various locations. When his relics were transferred in 1755 to the Monastery of the Holy Trinity in Slutsk, in the Minsk Guberniya, a placard related that a Jew had been responsible for his death. His cult developed and spread throughout the Russian Empire, and he was canonized in 1820. He is considered the patron saint of children. In the 1930s the relics were transferred to the Minsk Museum of Atheism.