Early Life and Ascetic Beginnings
According to his vita, Hilarion was the son of a Kakheti aristocrat and was dedicated to God from his birth. His father had established a monastery, and the boy was raised within it. At the age of fourteen he left his father's monastery and settled in a cave in the Davit-Gareji wilderness, where he lived in seclusion for ten years.
His reputation as a tireless intercessor in prayer spread through eastern Georgia, drawing crowds who sought his instruction and blessing. The bishop of Rustavi ordained him a priest, and he became abbot of the Lavra of Saint David of Gareji. Davit-Gareji, the great cave-monastery complex of the Georgian semi-desert, is named in the sources as the major shrine associated with him.
Pilgrimage to the Holy Land
After his ordination Hilarion left Georgia for Jerusalem. The synaxarion relates that on the journey thieves attacked him, but their hands suddenly withered; when they fell to their knees and begged forgiveness, he healed and pardoned them. According to his vita he venerated Mount Tabor, the Jordan River, and the Lavra of Saint Sabas, where by one account he remained seven years, living in a cave as a hermit.
Tradition holds that while he dwelt in the Jordan wilderness the Theotokos appeared to him and instructed him to return to his homeland. Returning to Georgia, he found that his father and brothers had died. His mother gave him the family inheritance, which he used to establish a convent for women and a monastery for men numbering seventy-six ascetics, distributing the remainder of the property to the poor.
Mount Olympus and the Western Pilgrimage
When the clergy sought to consecrate him bishop, Hilarion again fled, leaving Georgia with two companions for Mount Olympus in Bithynia, in Asia Minor, where they settled in a forsaken church. His vita recounts that the local abbot at first drove the foreign monks away but, after the Theotokos appeared rebuking him for his treatment of them, received them with honor. By the account preserved in his life, in 864 he established a monastery on Mount Olympus, sometimes identified as the Lavra of Krania, which chiefly housed his Georgian compatriots; he is said to have spent five years on the mountain.
From Mount Olympus he journeyed to Constantinople to venerate the Life-giving Cross, and then to Rome to honor the tombs of the Apostles Peter and Paul, remaining, by one account, two years at the Apostles' graves. Along the way he is said to have healed a paralyzed man, and similar wonders followed him as he traveled.
Thessalonica and Repose
Arriving in Thessalonica, Hilarion healed a paralyzed boy of fourteen by the sign of the Cross. The prefect of the city, who witnessed the miracle, entreated the saint to remain and built a church at the place he chose. There Hilarion spent the remaining years of his life, continuing to work wonders, and he reposed on November 19, 875.
He is venerated in the Eastern Orthodox Church and is counted among the patron saints of Georgia. His hagiography was written after his death on Mount Athos by the followers of Saint Euthymius the Athonite, and texts of it survive from the tenth and eleventh centuries.
Relics and Shrines
After his death the grieving prefect of Thessalonica prepared a marble shrine for the saint, and the sources relate that those who approached his grave with faith received healing. The Emperor Basil I the Macedonian (reigned 867-886) learned of the miracles from the prefect and the archbishop and wished to translate the relics to Constantinople. The people of Thessalonica resisted, but imperial envoys eventually conveyed the relics to the capital in secret.
Basil at first kept the relics in his own chamber; tradition relates that Hilarion appeared to him declaring that the fragrance of holiness belonged 'in the wilderness, not in the city,' after which the emperor transferred the relics to the Monastery of Romana outside Constantinople, where they were said to give off a healing fragrance. The sources add that three disciples of Hilarion so impressed the emperor that he built them a monastery at Romana with a church dedicated to the Holy Apostles, and that he later sent his sons Leo and Alexander to be educated by these Georgian fathers.
