Saint Hilarion of Tvali (XI)

Very scant information about the Venerable Hilarion of Tvali has come down to us. We know that he laboured at first in the monastery of Khakhuli and was one of the greatest churchmen, writers and translators of his time. George the Lesser (eleventh century) writes in “The Life of George the Athonite” that Saint Hilarion was “renowned for the highest virtues and spiritual labours”. Hilarion “shone like a star in the assembly of the fathers, whose virtues and labours it is impossible to tell”.

The Venerable Hilarion brought up the boy George the Athonite when he was brought to the monastery of Khakhuli. “As a good son given by God, so he received him, and trained him in good order and virtue, and so by God’s will he advanced like a good plant set by the streams of God-inspired teachings, and grew day by day.” It seems that from the monastery of Khakhuli Saint Hilarion went to Antioch to labour there. His byname “of Tvali” comes from the monastery of Tvali near Antioch.

Saint Hilarion tonsured George the Athonite a monk, and it was he who planted in him that holiness and wisdom with which George delighted the Church of Georgia. According to Mikheil Sabinin (1845–1900), the Venerable Hilarion died in 1041.