Hilary of Neamt

Hilarion was an archimandrite and abbot of Neamț Monastery between 1818 and 1823, a disciple of Saint Paisius, originally from Bukovina. He fell asleep in the autumn of 1823. He is named in the Romanian Paterikon and venerated by the faithful, without synodal canonization; the sources available to us give no day of commemoration.

The monastery's archive describes him as a true Moldavian, a man adorned with many good works, rich in spiritual things, brave in all troubles. His first care was keeping spiritual life in the lavra and in its four sketes. Neamț and Secu then numbered more than five hundred monks in community and almost a hundred hermits in the forests, especially around Pocrov, Sihăstria and Sihla. Hilarion kept the unity of the monks, zeal for church, prayer and obedience and the reading of the Fathers. Under his guidance there were printed at Neamț the Homilies of Saint Isaac the Syrian (1819), the Holy Gospel (1821), the Book for the Rule (1823) and the Psalter (1823-1824).

In his time hard trials came: the fighting between the Turks and the Greek Eteria fighters, the burning of Secu and Sihăstria, the scattering of the monks through villages and forests and the plundering of the holy places. Hilarion hid in the mountains the wonderworking icon of the Mother of God and the printing press and, by paying a sum of money, saved Neamț from fire and devastation. In 1822, when Moldavia grew calm, he sent three monks to bring the icon down from the mountain, and he with the whole community met it with tears, set it in the church and kept a vigil of thanksgiving. On the spot where it had been hidden he founded the Icoana Skete, in honour of the Mother of God.

After six years of leading, the community being strengthened again, Hilarion fell asleep in peace in the autumn of 1823, mourned by the whole community.