He graduated from a night school in Sambir and worked as a mechanic at the Lviv Forklift Plant.
From 1956 to 1959 he served in the army. After demobilization, he entered the department of the History Faculty of Lviv State University.
On August 24, 1965, he was arrested and sentenced to 3 years in a strict regime camp for "anti-Soviet propaganda".
On January 12, 1972, he was arrested for the second time and sentenced to 10 years in a special regime camp and 5 years in exile, recognized as a particularly dangerous recidivist. He served his sentence in Mordovia (Sosnovka) and in the Perm region (Kuchino).
He participated in hunger strikes in the camps, including a hunger strike demanding political prisoner status. Total duration of hunger strikes was over 300 days.
Ivan Gel returned to Ukraine on January 17, 1987, and created and headed the Committee for the Protection of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.
He was a deputy and deputy chairman of the Lviv Oblast Council of the first democratic convocation (1990-1994). He headed the Lviv Regional Commission for the Restoration of the Rights of Rehabilitated Persons.
He died on March 16, 2011, in Lviv and was buried in the family grave at Lychakiv Cemetery.
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