Ilarion (Prikhodko)

Archimandrite Ilarion (Russian: Иларио́н, 7 July [O.S. 24 June] 1924 – 29 May, 2008) was a priest of the Russian Orthodox Church. He mostly served in Novgorod Oblast in the small village of Bronnitsa. There, he became widely known as a spiritual father, and many faithful attributed powers of clairvoyance and healing to him. The Russian Church is currently considering him for canonization.

Fr. Ilarion was born as Ivan Fomich Prikhodko (Russian: Ива́н Фо́мич Прихо́дько) in the village of Alenovka in the Unechsky District, Bryansk Oblast. His parents Foma and Iuliana gave him and his two siblings a pious upbringing. The family worked the land until the Soviets dispossessed them in the drive to collectivize farming. The Germans took whatever was left after they occupied the territory during the Second World War. Young Ivan joined the army in 1943 and covertly practiced his faith. The horrors of war and a severe combat injury he suffered shook him to the core. In the hospital, after meeting two nuns of the Catacomb Church, he decided that he himself would become a monk. After the war, his mother blessed his new path; his father was deeply upset, but did not prevent Ivan from entering the monastery.

Ivan entered the Glinsk Hermitage, located in modern-day Ukraine, in 1950. The monastery, dedicated to the Nativity of the Mother of God, was founded in the 17th century and had a high spiritual reputation; St. Seraphim of Sarov called it “a great school of the spiritual life.” It was closed by the Soviets in 1922, but reopened in 1942. By the time the future Father Ilarion arrived, it was the only operating monastery in Russia. The monastery strictly operated according to the Athonite rule: all property was held in common, and no monk had personal possessions. Ivan developed spiritually from reading the works of the Church Fathers, following the rule of the monastery, and hearing the advice of the monastery’s elders. In 1957, he was tonsured a monk with the new name of Ilarion, and two years later he became a hierodeacon. Even as a young deacon, people were beginning to come to him for spiritual advice.

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