Gerasime Beburishvili

Saint Gerasime Beburishvili, called Grigol Simonovich Beburishvili in the world, was a Georgian hieromonk, chanter and copyist. He was born in 1781 in the village of Kardenakhi (today in Gurjaani municipality) and died a martyr at the Gareji monastery on 18 July 1851. He was the illegitimate son of the national hero Simon Beburishvili-⁠Vachnadze, killed in extreme old age by the Russians in February 1812. In 1792 his father sent him to be raised by Metropolitan Ioane of Bodbe, in the monastery of Saint Nino, where he learned chant from the famous priest Saba Atanelashvili. Later Archimandrite Geronti, of the court church of Erekle II, took him to the David Gareji monastery for schooling.

In 1802 the abbot of Gareji, Archimandrite Hilarion, ordained him deacon with the name Geronti, and in 1832 the hieromonk Theophan Machabeli tonsured him a monk with the name Gerasime. The same year, at the Sioni cathedral of the Dormition in Tbilisi, Exarch Moses of Georgia ordained him priest. Between 1843 and 1849 he stayed at the Transfiguration monastery in Tbilisi (by tradition, to treat a hearing problem), then returned to Gareji. He copied several manuscripts, among them "Selected Festal Hymns", to which he added a testament in his own hand.

On 18 July 1851 Gerasime and the others of the Gareji community were taken captive by the Lezgins who burst into the monastery, tortured and beheaded. The Church of Georgia canonized him in 1995. He is commemorated on 12 August (old style; 25 August new style).