Venerable Hilarion Tualeli — July 24 / August 6 (Julian Calendar)

On this day, July 24 according to the Julian Calendar (August 6 civil calendar), the Georgian Orthodox Church commemorates Venerable Hilarion Tualeli.

Very little information has been preserved about Venerable Hilarion Tualeli. We know that he first labored in the Khakhuli Monastery and was one of the greatest spiritual figures, writers, and translators of his time. Giorgi Mtsire (11th century) writes in the “Life of Giorgi Mtatsmindeli” that St. Hilarion was “renowned for the highest virtue and spiritual labors.” Hilarion “shone like the morning star among the assembly of the fathers, whose virtues and labors are impossible to recount.”

Venerable Hilarion raised the young Giorgi Mtatsmindeli (George of the Holy Mountain), who had been brought to the Khakhuli Monastery. “He received him as a good child given by God, and instructed him in good order and virtue; and thus, by the will of God, like a good sapling planted beside the streams of divinely inspired teachings, he flourished day by day.” It appears that from the Khakhuli Monastery St. Hilarion went on to labor in Antioch. His epithet “Tualeli” derives from the Monastery of Tuali, located near Antioch.

St. Hilarion tonsured Giorgi Mtatsmindeli as a monk, and it was he who instilled in him the holiness and wisdom with which Giorgi would later sweeten the Church of Georgia. According to Mikheil Sabinin (1845–1900), Venerable Hilarion reposed in the year 1041.