Early Life and Monastic Beginnings
Hilarion was born in Promahi, in present-day Greece, around 1080–1090, to parents described as eminent and devout who had long been childless. By tradition, the Virgin Mary appeared to his barren mother and promised that she would bear a son who would turn many toward the knowledge of God's truth. The synaxarion relates that from the age of three he constantly repeated the Trisagion.
At eighteen he entered a local monastery and was tonsured a monk. He later founded a monastery dedicated to the Holy Apostles, organized according to the Rule of Saint Pachomius, and on account of his virtuous life and ascetic discipline he was made its igumen, or abbot. He was noted for eliminating drunkenness within the monastic community.
Bishop of Meglin
In 1134 Hilarion was consecrated Bishop of Meglin by Archbishop Eustathius of Trnovo. Tradition holds that Eustathius likewise received a vision of the Virgin Mary announcing Hilarion's appointment.
Throughout his episcopate he led what the sources describe as a nearly lifelong struggle against the Bogomil heresy, a dualistic movement that posited good and evil as independent principles and rejected the Old Testament, and against Armenian Monophysite teaching, which acknowledged only the divine nature of Christ. Through scriptural argument, spiritual learning, and personal sanctity, many of the heterodox are said to have abandoned their teachings and returned to the Church.
Repose and Translation of Relics
Saint Hilarion reposed peacefully in 1164. His relics rested in Meglin until the Bulgarian Tsar Ioannis Asanis transferred them to the Church of the Forty Saints in Trnovo between 1204 and 1206.
Traditional Accounts
By tradition, myrrh streamed from the saint's eyes at his burial, and he is said to have appeared afterward in visions to monks to strengthen them in their duties. The synaxaria also record the Marian visions surrounding his birth and his episcopal appointment. These accounts derive from the Orthodox synaxarion tradition rather than from independent historical documentation.
