Venerable Hilarion the Great

Life

Just as a rose grows upon thorns, so this great saint was born of pagan parents, in the village of Tabatha near Gaza in Palestine. His parents sent him for studies to Alexandria, where the gifted young man quickly acquired both worldly learning and spiritual wisdom. Having come to know Christ the Lord and been baptized, he desired to devote himself entirely to the Lord's service. With this desire in his heart, Hilarion visited Saint Anthony in the desert and became his disciple. He then returned to his homeland and practiced asceticism near Majuma, by Gaza. Demons frightened him with various terrors, but he always conquered and drove them away through prayer to God and the sign of the Cross. Around him there gathered a multitude of lovers of the spiritual life, and Saint Hilarion became for Palestine what Saint Anthony was for Egypt. A divine teacher, an unwearying ascetic, a wondrous wonderworker, Hilarion was esteemed not only by Christians but also by pagans. But fearing the praise of men — and saying through tears: "Woe is me, I have received my reward on earth!" — he fled from place to place solely to hide from people and remain alone with his own soul and God. Thus he settled and lived for a time in Egypt, in Sicily, in Dalmatia, and finally on Cyprus, where he ended his laborious life around the year 372, in the eightieth year of his life. The wonderworking relics of Saint Hilarion were transferred by his disciple Hesychius to Palestine and placed in the monastery he had founded.

From the Hymn of Praise

Holy Hilarion, like a radiant comet,Fleeing from people, traversed half the world,But in vain does a star hide from sight,Its light is revealed to all the world.