Archbishop Hilarion (Trinity)

Archbishop Hilarion (in the world Vladimir Alexandrovich) was born in 1886 in the family of a priest from the village. Lipitsa, Serpukhov district, Moscow province. He was distinguished by great diligence and love of learning. He studied excellently, starting from theological school and ending with the Theological Academy, from which he graduated in 1910 with a candidate of theology degree. “Essays on the History of the Dogma of the Church,” one of his first major theological works, for which he received a Master of Theology degree. Within the walls of the monastery of St. Sergius of Radonezh on March 28, 1913, he took monastic vows with the name Hilarion, and then was soon ordained as a hieromonk. In the same year, he became an inspector of the Moscow Theological Academy, he was confirmed as an extraordinary professor of the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament and elevated to the rank of archimandrite. He was subsequently awarded the degree of Doctor of Divinity. Archimandrite Hilarion was an outstanding theologian, preacher and church leader of the Russian Orthodox Church. His works are characterized by an ecclesiastical direction, a tireless struggle against scholasticism and specific Latinism, which penetrated into our theology with Metropolitan Peter Mogila. His ideal is the churchliness of theological school and theological science. His constant reminder: outside the Church there is no salvation, outside the Church there are no sacraments. He can rightfully be called a theologian of the church, since most of his theological works were devoted precisely to the disclosure of the Orthodox teaching about the church. He became a theologian of the church not only in his writings, but also in his life and work. Archimandrite Hilarion was an ardent supporter of the restoration of the patriarchate, and as a member of the Local Council of 1917–1918, he spoke with inspiration at the Council in defense of the Patriarchate. On May 12, 1920, Archimandrite Hilarion was consecrated Bishop of Vereisky, vicar of the Moscow diocese. His contemporaries paint his portrait with light colors. He is young, cheerful, comprehensively educated, an excellent church preacher - orator and singer, a brilliant polemicist with atheists, always natural, sincere, open. Physically very strong, tall, with a broad chest, had lush brown hair, a clear, light face. A favorite of the people, he was a brilliant preacher and speaker. His sermons ring from church pulpits like a bell, calling God's people to faith and moral renewal. Bishop Hilarion enjoyed great authority among the clergy and his fellow bishops, who called him “The Great” for his intelligence and firmness in the faith. In June 1923, the Patriarch elevated Bishop Hilarion to the rank of archbishop. At a time when renovationists are fighting the church, Archbishop Hilarion comes to its defense and devotes all his strength to it. He is engaged in the restoration of church organization and composes a number of patriarchal messages. For renovationists, he becomes a thunderstorm and is inseparable from His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon. In December 1923, Archbishop Hilarion was sentenced to Solovki, and so, together with the entire church, his way of the cross began. And here, in the Solovetsky camp, Archbishop Hilarion remains a faithful theologian of the Church of Christ, its confessor and martyr. Those who were in Solovki with him at that time witnessed his complete monastic non-covetousness, deep beauty, genuine humility, and childish meekness. Vladyka Hilarion was very pleased with the idea that Solovki was a school of virtues - non-acquisitiveness, meekness, humility, abstinence, patience, hard work. One day, an arriving party of clergy was robbed, and the fathers were greatly upset. One of the prisoners jokingly told them that this was how they were taught non-covetousness. Vladyka Hilarion was delighted with this joke. In troubled times, when, after the Renovationist schism, disagreements also penetrated among the exiled archbishops on Solovki, Archbishop Hilarion appeared as a real peacemaker among them. He managed to unite them with each other on the basis of Orthodoxy. Vladyka Hilarion was among the bishops who in September 1927 developed the text of the so-called “Message of the Solovetsky Bishops” - a message that was of enormous importance in the fight against the divisions that arose then. As a theologian of the Church, Archbishop Hilarion thought and argued that only with the conciliarity of the Church will there be ecclesiastical pacification, caused by renovationism and schisms, and the normal activity of the Russian Orthodox Church will be established in the new conditions of the Soviet state. His way of the cross ended in December 1929. He was sent to eternal settlement in Central Asia, in Alma-Ata. On the way he was robbed, and he arrived in Leningrad in rags, infested with parasites, and already sick. From the prison hospital in Leningrad, he wrote: “I am seriously ill with typhus, I am lying in the prison hospital, I must have become infected on the road, on Saturday, December 15, my fate (the disease crisis) is being decided, I am unlikely to survive it.” At the hospital they told him that he needed to be shaved, to which the Reverend replied: “Do with me what you want.” In his delirium he said: “Now I’m completely free, no one will take me.” The Angel of Death was already standing at the head of the sufferer. A few minutes before his death, a doctor approached him and said that the crisis was over and that he could recover. Archbishop Hilarion whispered barely audibly: “How good! Now we are far from...” And with these words, the confessor of Christ died 1. Vladyka Hilarion was buried in the cemetery of the Novodevichy Convent, not far from the graves of the relatives of the archbishop, later Patriarch Alexei. The entire life of Archbishop Hilarion Troitsky was filled with faith and love for the Church of Christ, he became its theologian, martyr and confessor. Bulletin of the Leningrad Theological Academy 1990, No. 2. Archbishop of Kuibyshev and Syzran John (Snychev). “Church figures of the Russian Orthodox Church in the 20–30s,” p. 35.