The Orthodox Church commemorates Venerable Hilarion, the Abbot of the Dalmatian Monastery, and Saint Attalus the Wonderworker.
Venerable Hilarion was born in 775 AD and was born in Cappadocia. His parents were pious and virtuous people and instilled the Orthodox faith in their young son. When he became an adult, he decided to follow a monastic path. He went to a monastery in Constantinople, where he followed wholeheartedly an ascetic way of life; he was fasting, was silent, and was studying the Scriptures.
He then went to the Dalmatian Monastery, where he became a great monk. There, he was a gardener for a decade. He was an example for the other ascetics because he was humble and was caring for all of his brothers, who unanimously elected him abbot of the monastery.
When the Iconoclasm broke out, they tried, unsuccessfully, to make him yield to the pressure. He remained steadfast in his faith and brave with the support of the Holy Spirit. Saint Hilarion was persecuted and fiercely tortured when he was arrested. He was imprisoned, treated in a revolting way, and exiled for eight years but he never gave up. He endured all the hardships “as a good soldier of Christ”, thanking and glorifying the Lord, who helped him remain steadfast during his struggles. Short after the Triumph of Orthodoxy, Venerable Hilarion returned to the Dalmatian Monastery, where he lived for three more years and reposed in the Lord peacefully at the age of 70, in 845 AD.
Source: Church of Cyprus
