ST. HILARY OF POITIERS (JAN. 13TH)

 

St. Hilary of Poitiers

By Bp. Joseph

St. Hilary (310AD-367AD), Bishop of Poitiers, was born in the country of Guienne. He was an exemplary husband to his wife, and a loving father to his only child, a daughter named Apia. He excelled so much in holy life and the study of science that he was chosen as the Archbishop of Poitiers by the people of the Diocese. 

The Arian heresy became popular throughout all of France, but St. Hilary knew that it was an evil departure from the Faith of the Apostles, and preached against it. The emperor converted to the Arian doctrine, and persecuted St. Hilary, sending him into exile. In exile, St. Hilary wrote many influential books, which helped to convert many back to the Orthodox Faith. He was a spiritual father through these writings to St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and St. Jerome, and was widely read amongst the Eastern Fathers, who all agreed that he was the "Athanasius of the West." While in exile, he also disputed two famous Arians, who called themselves bishops, and overcame them by the power of his persuasive words. After this long ordeal of persecution and separation from his family, he was restored again to his bishopric and returned to Poitiers. 

A story is told that, upon his journey home to Poitiers, St. Hilary stopped on a certain island in the Mediterranean, full of poisonous serpents. St. Hilary made the Sign of the Cross with his crosier, and the serpents could no longer pass the place where he planted his pastoral staff. Seeing the plight of the islanders, St. Hilary left his crosier in the middle of the island, and it budded and grew into a great tree, which still repels snakes and serpents to this day. 

St. Hilary blesses the inhabitants of a cursed island

Later, when St. Hilary came to Poitiers, he met a family that was burying their unbaptized infant, since it had died in childbirth and had not taken even its first breath. The family wept and wailed that the child had not been prepared for reception in Paradise. Moved with compassion, St. Hilary wept with them and sat himself in the dust with the family, imploring God for the soul of the young child. Accompanying the body, St. Hilary lay beside the child and prayed that God would restore its life by the power of the Holy Trinity. A great wind blew and the child cried out. All were struck with godly fear that the child was brought back to life, and the family glorified God for His marvelous works. 

After St. Hilary had returned to Poitiers for a long time, his daughter Apia decided that she would marry, but St. Hilary asked her to commit her life to the Lord as a consecrated virgin, and so she obeyed her father and became a nun. However, several years later, still moved by the desire to marry and have her own family, she resolved to leave behind the consecrated state. St. Hilary begged her to reconsider. Not long after she decided to leave behind monasticism, Apia died, and her family was overcome with grief. Filled with remorse that her daughter had been forced into monasticism by her father, her mother asked God to take her as well, and this left a bereft St. Hilary grieving and in the monastic state that he had always so much admired in others. 

It was after this tragedy that St. Hilary became aware that the Pope of Rome, Leo, favored the Arian heresy, and that he called a local council in order to affirm the teachings that were popular with the apostate emperor. St. Hilary was not invited, but he undertook the journey anyway, and when he arrived, met the Pope just as he was headed to relieve himself in the "privy chamber." The Pope mocked him by saying - "You are Hilary the cock, and not the son of a hen!" St. Hilary answered: "I am Hilary and no cock, but a bishop in Gallia that is in France." Then said the Pope, "You are Hilary Gallus, and I am Leo of the Papal See, Judge of All." To whom Hilary said: "If you be Leo yet you are not of the Tribe of Judah." Then the Pope had great indignation and said to him: "Wait for me here a little while, and I shall pay to you a salary." And St. Hilary answered: "If you do not come back again, who will pay for you?" And the Pope answered: "I must come back again, if just to beat down your pride." Then the Pope went into the privy chamber to relieve himself, and his entrails fell out of him into the cesspit below, and the Pope died. After waiting for the Pope a while, and seeing that he did not return from the toilet, St. Hilary went into the Synod, but none of the bishops would give him a seat. So, St. Hilary said, "All the earth belongs to the Lord," and sat down right in the middle of the Synod, on the earthen floor, and the earth pushed up and became a throne, as high as all the other bishops' thrones.  After this miracle, the word came that the Pope had died in his privy chamber, and St. Hilary exhorted and confirmed all the bishops in Orthodoxy, warning them of the consequences of God's wrath on them for allowing heresy. After this, St. Hilary returned to his own country. 

St. Hilary supernaturally enthroned in the midst of the other bishops, after the death of a heretic Pope

Not long after this, St. Hilary was given a vision in prayer that he was soon to die. He called one of his beloved priests, whom he loved as a son, and told him that death approached. This disciple kept watch with him in the night, and heard the sound of a great noise in the middle of the city about midnight. After a while, St. Hilary asked him to go and keep watch over the city, but fearing for his master's life, he returned just in time to see a great light descend from heaven, filling the church where St. Hilary lay, and engulfing him with such brightness that it blinded the priest. When the light faded, St. Hilary was dead, and all knew that he had found grace in the eyes of the Lord. 

St. Hilary, pray for us!

(Translated from Jacobus De Varagine's "Golden Legend" by Bp. Joseph Boyd)