Hymns for the Athos Saints

The commemorations of our holy and blessed father Ilarion, whose troparia say: "This now God-clad Ilarion, let them praise today according to the order, amen." O Lord, bless. O Lord, help. The commemoration of your raising. Like a lightning of the holy light, you have sent us today the memory of the all-glorious ascetic Ilarion, the new luminary. Come quickly, O flock of Christ, and let us be illumined by the radiant light of his virtues, which shone forth from Christ. From your youth, O father, the ways of your soul toward the lofty virtues were swiftly directed, O God-clad one, and by an ascent from strength to strength, O blessed one, you were not hindered on the paths of life until you reached the holy haven of heaven. You burned with the fire of holy love, by which you extinguished the princes of darkness, O God-clad and venerable Ilarion, and you swallowed up all the power of the mighty Pharaoh in the abyss of your tears, and you drew the orderly company of ascetics into the struggles of the world. You put on the armor of the flesh in the light of asceticism, you made the inferior a servant of the superior, and those harsh tremblings of the flesh you kindled by them, and you subordinated them to the chief mind through the fear of God, and, as if by a chariot, you ascended to the vaults of heaven.

Grant us also, O father, the places of life, wherein you now dwell in the heavens; soften for us the harshness of those holy abodes and dissolve the corruption of the flesh upon us; and let the bonds of our faults be loosened; and, like a sweet father, intercede for us before the Trinity.