Hilarion Grigorovich

Bishop Hilarion Grigorovich was born on 20 December 1696 at Sosnytsia, now in the Chernihiv region of Ukraine, and fell asleep at Moscow on 3 December, according to one source in 1759, according to another in 1760. He was bishop of Krutitsy (Sarsk and Podonsk), a learned teacher and preacher. He is honoured as a local saint in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and in the Tula and Bryansk dioceses of the Russian Orthodox Church. Our calendar gives the days of 11, 20 and 22 September.

Studies and first service

He graduated from the Kyiv Theological Academy. In 1721 he was tonsured a monk at the Brotherhood monastery in Kyiv and appointed teacher at the Kyiv Academy. In 1726 he was ordained hieromonk and became prefect of the Kharkov college, professor of rhetoric and philosophy and preacher. On 29 June 1733 he was raised to archimandrite and appointed abbot of the Holy Mountains monastery in the diocese of Belgorod, from which he was moved to the Saint Nicholas monastery in Belgorod. In 1740 he was moved to the monastery of Saint Sabbas Storozhevsky, in the diocese of Moscow, in 1743 to the Chudov monastery in Moscow, and from 17 December 1744 he was archimandrite of the New Jerusalem Resurrection monastery. Until 1747, by decision of the Holy Synod, he worked on the correction of the Slavonic Bible, which appeared in 1751 (the Elizabethan Bible).

The bishop

On 15 March 1748 he became a member of the Holy Synod, and on 22 May 1748 he was consecrated bishop of Krutitsy (Sarsk and Podonsk). Bishop Hilarion led the diocese of Krutitsy for twelve years and was counted one of the most remarkable archpastors of all the years before his ministry. He remained in the memory of the people as a man of God-⁠pleasing life and was honoured as a saint. Between 14 June 1754 and 25 January 1758 he temporarily governed the diocese of Moscow. He fell asleep on 3 December 1759 or 1760 and was buried in the crypt beneath the side church of the former bishop's house at Krutitsy.

Canonization

On 22 September 1988 he was glorified as a locally venerated saint of the diocese of Tula, and the hierarch's name was entered in the synaxis of the saints and ascetics of piety who shone forth in the land of Tula. On 8 May 2008 the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church decided on local canonization in the diocese of Donetsk, in the synaxis of the saints of the Holy Mountains. The service of glorification took place in the Dormition cathedral of the Sviatohirsk lavra, during the visit of the primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Vladimir of Kyiv and all Ukraine, on 12 July 2008. In the same year, 2008, he was also entered in the synaxis of the saints of Bryansk. He wrote sermons, among them the word for the sixth Sunday after Pascha (1742), the word for the New Year (1747) and the word for the name day of the empress Elizabeth Petrovna (1748).