Saint Hilarion the New of Georgia was a Georgian hieroschemamonk and ascetic of Mount Athos, renowned in his own lifetime as a clairvoyant elder and spiritual father. Born Ise Qanchaveli in 1776 in the village of Losiantkhevi, in the Shorapani district of Kutaisi, he came of pious and God-fearing noble parents, Khakhuli and Mariam Qanchaveli. He is surnamed "the New" — in Georgian, Hilarion Kartveli, Akhali — to distinguish him from an earlier Saint Hilarion the Georgian commemorated on November 19.
From the age of six the future saint was raised by his uncle, the hermit Hierodeacon Stepane, and was later sent to study at a seminary in Tbilisi. According to the tradition, Bishop Athanasios counseled him to seek spiritual growth through prayer in the wilderness rather than through formal study. He entered the court service of King Solomon II of Imereti (reigned 1789–1815), who recognized his piety and appointed him his personal spiritual adviser. At the king's suggestion he married the Princess Mariam and was soon ordained a priest, serving as confessor of the court church; his wife reposed about two years afterward, leaving him a widower.
After his wife's death Ise made his way to Mount Athos, where in 1821 he was tonsured a monk and given the name Hilarion. He lived at Dionysiou Monastery and later at Iveron Monastery, where he took charge of the Georgian library and compiled twelve volumes of the Lives of the Saints, a work he titled The Flower Garden. The fathers of the Holy Mountain placed him on the highest spiritual level, and he was esteemed as a desert-recluse, confessor, and great ascetic. He reposed at the Russian Monastery of Saint Panteleimon (the Russikon) on February 14, 1864.
Saint Hilarion was canonized by the Georgian Apostolic Orthodox Church on October 17, 2002. His memory is kept on February 14. The anchor account of the database adds that his labors extended also to Jerusalem and to Russia, reflecting the wide travels of his monastic life.
