Hilarion the Georgian

Saint Hilarion the Georgian was a monk from Kakheti in Georgia, a wonderworker, who also lived on Mount Olympus in Bithynia and fell asleep in Thessaloniki in the ninth century. The Church remembers him on 19 November by the old calendar, which is 2 December. He translated Holy Scripture and ascetic books into Georgian.

According to his Life, written after his repose by the followers of Saint Euthymius of Athos, in texts that survive from the tenth and eleventh centuries, he was born around 822 into a rich princely family of Kakheti, the Donauri. At twelve he was tonsured a monk in a monastery built by his father, and at sixteen he moved to the lavra of Saint David of Gareja, where he stayed ten years. At thirty he became abbot of a new monastery, but soon set out on pilgrimage to the Holy Places. He lived for years in the Jordan wilderness and at the lavra of Saint Sabbas, in a cave, leading a hermitage. According to other sources he stayed there seven years.

He returned to Georgia, made his parental home into a monastery for his relatives, gave half his property to the monastery of David Gareja and settled there, becoming, according to the sources, bishop of David Gareja. Soon he went to Olympus, where he spent five years. In 864 he founded a monastery there, possibly the Lavra of Krania, which housed mostly Georgians. That church in time sheltered Saint John the Iberian, Saint Euthymius of Athos and Tornike Eristavi. Then he visited Constantinople and Rome, and after a stay of three years in Thessaloniki he fell asleep in 882, in his seventy-⁠eighth year according to some, in his seventy-⁠second according to others. According to other sources he died in 875.

He devoted himself to translating Holy Scripture and ascetic books into Georgian. Even in his lifetime he was regarded as a wonderworker.