Nazarius, Metropolitan of Kutaisi-Gaenati, was a hierarch of the Georgian Orthodox Church martyred during the Soviet persecution of the Church in Georgia in the years following the Russian Revolution. Born in 1872 in the village of Didi Jikhaishi in Imereti, with the baptismal name Joseph, he was educated at the Kutaisi Theological School and graduated with honors from the Tbilisi Seminary in 1892. He began serving as a deacon and priest from February 9, 1893; after the deaths of his wife and two daughters, he was tonsured a monk in 1904, and on November 4, 1918, he was enthroned as Metropolitan of Kutaisi.
After the Red Army invaded Georgia in February 1921, treasures of the Sioni and Svetitskhoveli Cathedrals were concealed at the metropolitan's residence. The Bolsheviks discovered the treasures and imprisoned Nazarius for roughly two years on charges of agitation against the state and of hiding the property of the Church; he was released under an amnesty in April 1924. On August 14, 1924, after consecrating a church in the village of Simoneti, he and his companions were seized by Soviet security agents, condemned by a Troika tribunal without investigation, and shot in the Sapichkhia Forest. He is commemorated together with the priests and the archdeacon who suffered with him, and in 1994 the Georgian Orthodox Church numbered them among the New Martyrs of the Georgian Church.
