Hilarion Pisarets

Saint Hilarion (in the world Hilarion Pavlovich Pisarets, 1871-1937), venerable martyr, was a hieromonk, a disciple of the Glinsk Hermitage and a village priest, shot at the Butovo firing range on 3 December 1937. He was glorified in 2000. He is commemorated on 3 December, the day of his martyrdom.

Life

He was born in 1871 in the village of Sobichevo in the Glukhov district of Chernigov province, into a peasant family. At twenty-⁠two he entered the Glinsk Hermitage of the Nativity of the Mother of God, in Kursk province, as a novice and was tonsured a monk. In 1914 he was ordained hieromonk and from 1914 to 1927 served at the Donskoy Monastery in Moscow.

In 1927, at the request of the parishioners of the church of the Nativity of Christ in the village of Rozhdestvo, now in the Naro-⁠Fominsk district, who were left without a priest, he was sent to serve there. Besides the services he went round the homes of the parishioners, serving molebens, processions and even a census, to know how many believers he had in the parish. In 1933 he was arrested for the first time but released after five days.

Martyrdom

On 15 October 1937 the chairman of the village soviet of Rozhdestvo sent the NKVD a complaint saying that on the feast of the Protection of the Mother of God the priest had gone round the houses with molebens without permission and had gathered signatures of believers. On 26 November 1937 Father Hilarion was arrested and imprisoned in Taganka in Moscow. At the investigation he categorically rejected all the charges.

He was shot on 3 December 1937 at the Butovo firing range, by the sentence of the NKVD troika of the Moscow region of 29 November 1937.

Veneration

He was numbered among the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia by the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church on 20 August 2000, for veneration throughout the Church. He is commemorated on 3 December, the day of his martyrdom, with the New Martyrs and Confessors of Vereya and Naro-⁠Fominsk on 28 December, with the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia on 7 February, and with the New Martyrs of Butovo on the fourth Saturday after Pascha. A troparion, kontakion and prayer have been composed for him.