A ninth-century Byzantine abbot of the Dalmatus monastery in Constantinople who died in 845 after enduring the second wave of Iconoclasm.

Saint Hilarion the New was a priest and abbot of the Dalmatus monastery in or near Constantinople, dying in the year 845, shortly before the definitive restoration of icon veneration under the Byzantine empress Theodora in 843. He is called “the New” to distinguish him from the earlier and more famous fourth-century founder, Hilarion the Great.

Quick Facts

• Died: 845, Dalmatus, Turkiye (Constantinople area)
• Venerated as: Abbot and monastic leader
• Title: Abbot of Dalmatus

Who Was Saint Hilarion the New?

Hilarion led the ancient and prestigious Dalmatus monastery near Constantinople during the ninth-century revival of Iconoclasm under emperors Leo V and his successors, a second phase of the controversy that followed the earlier, eighth-century wave which had already claimed Hilarion of Pelekete decades before.

Historical Setting

The second period of Iconoclasm, running roughly from 815 to 843, saw renewed imperial pressure on monasteries to abandon icon veneration, again meeting fierce resistance from monastic leaders who had inherited the earlier generation’s theological convictions on the subject. The controversy ended definitively only with the restoration of icons under Empress Theodora in 843, an event still celebrated in the Eastern Church as the Triumph of Orthodoxy.

Why the Church Remembers Saint Hilarion the New

He is remembered as a steward of monastic tradition and orthodox devotion through the last and, by his death in 845, essentially concluded phase of Iconoclasm, a leader who guided his community through the controversy’s final years.

Canonization and Feast Day

Eastern liturgical tradition, not any Western juridical process, is the source of this ninth-century abbot’s cult; he is honored within the same broader commemoration that celebrates the final restoration of icons.

What Catholics Can Learn Today

That two Iconoclastic controversies, a century apart, each produced their own faithful monastic defenders shows how a single conviction, once truly held by a community, can be handed down and defended across generations even under renewed pressure.

A Prayer to Saint Hilarion the New

Saint Hilarion the New, abbot of Dalmatus who guided your monks through a season of controversy, help us to hold fast to the truths our forebears defended before us. Amen.

Sources

• Byzantine Synaxarion
• Historical background on the Second Iconoclasm