Saint Gavrielia Papagianni

Gerontissa Gavrielia (Mother Gabriela), also known as Saint Gabriela of the Ascetic of Love (15 October 1897 – 28 March 1992) was a Greek Orthodox nun, known for her care of the poor and sick. She was the second woman to be admitted to a Greek university and was a trained physiotherapist prior to taking up her religious calling at the age of 60. She was canonized by the Holy synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople on 3 October 2023. Avrilia Papayannis was born on 15 October (2 October O.S.) 1897 N.S. in Constantinople in the Ottoman Empire as the youngest child of Helias and Victoria Papayannis, a wealthy Greek family. She grew up in Constantinople and lived there until her family was deported during the 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey and sent to Thessaloniki. She entered the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, becoming the second woman ever admitted to a Greek university, where she earned a degree in philosophy. She had previously graduated with a degree in botany at a Swiss university. In 1932, she moved to Athens and cared for nursing home residents until 1938 when she moved to England to study podiatry and physiotherapy, where she remained until the end of World War II. In 1945, Papayannis returned to Greece and began working with the American Farm School and Friends Relief Service in Thessaloniki, until 1947, when she moved to Athens and opened a physiotherapy practice. For a decade she operated her office using funds from her paying clients to provide assistance to the poor. Upon the death of her mother, in 1954, she took a vow of poverty and gave all her worldly possessions away. The following year, she moved to India to work with the poor and assist Baba Amte in his work with leper communities in India. After four years of providing free physiotherapy to the poor, Papayannis went to the Himalayan Mountains, spending eleven months in solitude as a hermit.