He was a member of the Monastery of St. Paul the Hermit on the island Školjić near Preko. Since early 2018, he had lived in the Monastery of St. Francis in Odra (Zagreb) for health reasons. 

Fra Gabrijel was born on January 19, 1935, to Romul and Kleofina, née Šanko, in Lun on the island of Pag. He completed elementary school in Lun in 1947, the lower grades of the ecclesiastical classical gymnasium in Zagreb in 1951, and the higher grades in Split in 1955. He professed his first religious vows in 1952 and his perpetual vows in 1958. In 1963, he completed his studies in philosophy and theology at the Faculty of Theology in Zagreb and was ordained to the priesthood in 1962. 

Fra Gabrijel served as the assistant pastor in Preko on the island of Ugljan (1963‒1966), chaplain of the Croatian Parish of St. Nicholas in Millvale, Pennsylvania, USA (1966‒1971), pastor of the Parish of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in McKeesport, USA (1971‒1994), head of the Croatian Catholic Mission of St. Blaise in Washington, D.C. (1994‒1999) and pastor in Millvale (1999‒2009). 

He served on the Province Council in the United States as a councilor (1972‒1984 and 2001‒2009) and first advisor (1984‒1993). After returning to Croatia, he lived and worked at the Monastery of St. Francis Xavier in Zagreb as the chaplain at a retirement home and confessor (2009‒2013), and subsequently was transferred to the monastery on the island of Školjić.