Hilarion the New of Pelekete
Our Venerable Father and Confessor Hilarion the New, Abbot of Pelekete
Venerable · Confessor · d. c. 754
Commemorated 28 March — Commemoration of the abbot-confessor of Pelekete
Hilarion, called "the New" to distinguish him from Hilarion the Great, was abbot of the monastery of Pelekete near the Hellespont in the eighth century, a wonderworker and an iconodule confessor who suffered under the persecuting emperor Constantine V Copronymus. He is honoured among the venerable confessors of the second Iconoclasm.
Hilarion embraced the monastic life in his youth and, by his ascetic labour and the purity of his life, was in time set over the brotherhood of Pelekete, a celebrated monastery on the Asian shore of the Sea of Marmara. Under his governance the house flourished, and the tradition ascribes to him miracles — the healing of the sick, the driving-off of a plague of destroying insects from the fields by his prayer, and a foreknowledge of things to come.
When the emperor Constantine Copronymus renewed the war on the holy icons and turned it with special fury against the monks — who were the strongest defenders of the images — the monastery of Pelekete was assailed. On the very night of Great and Holy Thursday, the imperial officer Michael Lachanodrakon fell upon the community: the church was profaned, monks were seized, some were drowned in sacks in the sea, others branded and mutilated, and Hilarion with his brethren was imprisoned and subjected to hardship for the confession of the Orthodox faith. Hilarion bore all steadfastly, and, surviving the persecution, ended his days in the ascetic life, numbered among the confessors. He reposed about 754.
Feast and commemoration
March 28 (church date; Old Calendar civil April 10), within Great Lent.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 8 (common of a venerable confessor)
In thee, O Father, was preserved unimpaired that which is according to God's image; for taking up the Cross thou didst follow after Christ, and by thy deeds thou didst teach us to despise the flesh, for it passeth away, but to care for the soul, a thing immortal. Wherefore, O venerable Hilarion, thy spirit rejoiceth with the angels.
Original translation from the Greek
Iconography
Hilarion is shown as an aged monk in the schema, holding a scroll or a cross. No pre-1900 icon of him alone has been identified for this collection.
Disputed questions
- Not to be confused with Hilarion the Great of Palestine (Oct 21), the father of Palestinian monasticism after whom he is called "the New," nor with Hilarion of Moglena or the several later Hilarions.
- Not to be confused, above all, with Hilarion the New of Dalmatia, June 6 (†845) — a genuinely distinct saint, and the confusion most likely to occur, since both men are styled "Hilarion the New," both were abbots of monasteries at or near Constantinople, and both were iconodule confessors imprisoned by an iconoclast emperor. They belong to the two different Iconoclasms: this Hilarion governed Pelekete on the Asian shore of the Marmara and suffered under Constantine V Copronymus in the first Iconoclasm, dying about 754; the other governed the ancient monastery of the Dalmatians within the walls of Constantinople and suffered under Leo V the Armenian and Theophilos in the second, dying in 845 after the Triumph of Orthodoxy. Where a calendar prints "Hilarion the New" without qualification, the day decides: March 28 is Pelekete, June 6 is Dalmatou.