Life
Saint Hilarion the Great is considered the father and founder of Palestinian monasticism, and his life was recorded by the celebrated Church Father Jerome of Stridon — himself from Dalmatia — in one of the finest hagiographic works of the ancient Church.
Hilarion was born around 291 in the town of Tabatha near Gaza in Palestine, in a pagan family. As a boy he was sent for schooling to Alexandria, where he came into contact with a Christian who brought him to the Church. He was baptized and at once aflame with the zeal of faith, leaving behind the world of entertainment and distraction. Having heard of the famous Anthony the Great who lived as a hermit in the Egyptian desert, young Hilarion went to him and spent about two months learning from him the foundations of the ascetic life.
On returning to Palestine, he found both his parents dead. He distributed his estate among his brothers and the poor, keeping for himself only a simple monastic garment, and withdrew into solitude in the desert near Gaza, at a place called Maiuma. There he lived in the utmost self-restraint: he ate only fifteen figs per day, used no oil or wine, slept on the bare ground, and overcame every bodily impulse through prolonged prayers and vigils. In this self-denial he spent decades, struggling against demonic attacks that disturbed his peaceful silence.
The fame of Hilarion’s miracles soon spread through Palestine and the entire East. The sick came to him, those possessed by demons, the blind, the lame — and Hilarion healed them by the power of prayer and divine grace. One of the most famous stories concerns a woman who had been unable to bear a child for fifteen years; after Hilarion’s prayer she bore a son. Naturally, every healing he performed in the name of Christ, always warning that the praise belongs to God, not to himself.
Around him there began to gather brethren eager for the monastic life, and Hilarion, reluctantly but with the fear of God, accepted the role of spiritual father and teacher. Thus in Palestine the first organized monastic center arose, modeled on the Egyptian hermits but adapted to Palestinian conditions. In this sense Hilarion is to Palestine what Anthony the Great is to Egypt.
However, the multitude of visitors and the fame were not to the taste of the humble hermit. When the report of him had grown so great that it left him no peace for prayer, Hilarion fled from the Holy Land. He went first to Egypt to visit Anthony’s hermitage (Anthony had already died), then to Sicily, where he lived for a time in anonymity working with his hands. But even there a possessed man recognized him crying out to the demon: “Hilarion, servant of Christ!” — and soon the faithful and the sick began to flock to him again.
Fleeing fame, Hilarion traveled to Dalmatia, where he stayed for a time on the shore of the Adriatic Sea. There too he worked miracles: in one coastal town a raging sea was calmed at his prayer. He finally arrived on the island of Cyprus, where in the interior, near the shore of Paphos, he found a peaceful solitude. There he spent the last years of his earthly life, and reposed in the Lord in 371, having reached the age of eighty.
After Hilarion’s repose, his disciple Hesychius brought the saint’s body to Cyprus, where it remained as a holy relic. The Church of Cyprus still preserves the holy memory of this hermit who brought monasticism from East to West.
Tropar (Tone 8)
Wearing out thy life with tears, thou didst gain glory through humility, and to voluntary afflictions thou didst add healing, while through miracles and expulsion of demons thou didst shine forth. O our Father Hilarion, intercede with Christ God to save our souls.
Kontakion (Tone 6)
Adorned with the life of the desert and with ascetic labors, and having illumined the inhabitants of the desert with an angelic life, thou hast been glorified through miracles and healings, O Venerable Father Hilarion. Intercede with Christ God, Who glorified thee, to save our souls.