Saint Hilarion the Great: From Gaza to the Desert, Fleeing Human Praise

The post tells the life of Saint Hilarion the Great. He was born to pagan parents in Thabatha near Gaza in Palestine and was sent as a young man to Alexandria to study. There he came to faith in Jesus Christ and received Holy Baptism. Wanting to give his life to God, he went to the Egyptian desert and became a disciple of Saint Anthony the Great, learning prayer, fasting, and spiritual struggle.

He then returned to Palestine and settled in the wilderness near Gaza, living in solitude. Demons attacked him with frightening visions and temptations, and he overcame them through prayer and the sign of the Holy Cross. When his holiness became known, people gathered around him for spiritual guidance and healing, and the post describes him as what Saint Anthony was to Egypt, he became to Palestine.

Yet Hilarion feared human praise above all things. With tears he said: "Woe to me! I have received my reward on earth!" To avoid recognition he kept moving from place to place, seeking silence and communion with God. He traveled through Egypt, Sicily, and Dalmatia, and finally settled on Cyprus.

Around the year 372, at about eighty years of age, he died in peace. His disciple Hesychius later moved his wonderworking relics to the monastery Hilarion had founded in Palestine. The post closes with the thought that the greatest spiritual treasure is being known and loved by God rather than admired by the world, and that the holiest souls often seek only silence, humility, and the presence of Christ. It ends with a prayer: Holy Venerable Father Hilarion, pray to God for us.