Crucea.ro

Bishop Hilarion (in the world Ivan Ivanovich Belsky) was born on March
20, 1893 in the family of a Petrograd protopriest in Olonets province. He
finished his studies at Olonetsk theological seminary in 1915 and entered the
Saint Petersburg Theological Academy. On July 3, 1919 he was tonsured
as a monk, becoming a member of the brotherhood of the Alexander Nevsky
Lavra. On July 13 he was ordained to the diaconate. By 1922 he was hieromonk
and the secretary of the church council and steward of the Lavra. He showed
great firmness in the struggle against renovationism in Petrograd, and at
the beginning of June, 1922 he was arrested in connection with the affair of
the “Brotherhood” religious organization and was also accused of hiding
Hieromonk Lev (Yegorov). However, the case was closed on September 13, and he
was released. By October, 1924 he was an igumen of the Lavra and rector of
the church of SS. Boris and Gleb on Kalashnikov naberezhye.
On October 1/14, 1924 Patriarch Tikhon consecrated him Bishop of Kargopol,
a vicariate of the Olonets diocese, although he was only thirty years old.
From 1924 he was in exile in Smolensk. On April 12, 1925 he signed the
act transferring leadership of the Church to Metropolitan Peter. Later, for
one year and eight months from 1926 to 1927, he administered the Smolensk
diocese, being commemorated as bishop of Porech, a vicariate of the Smolensk
diocese. From the beginning of 1928 he was Bishop of Kotelnichi, a
vicariate of the Vyatka diocese.

On March 4, 1928 he together with Bishop Nectarius of Yaransk declared
his separation from Metropolitan Sergius, and joined the branch of the
Catacomb Church led by Bishop Victor of Glazov. He was then arrested and
sentenced to the camps on Solovki for 10 years, where he was one of those who
were forbidden from working in their specialism, and had to do the heaviest
manual labour. He took part in secret services with the Catacomb bishops on
Solovki from January to October, 1928, and in 1928, according to one (dubious)
source, signed the decisions of the so-called “Nomadic Council” of the
Catacomb Church through the priest Anthony (Elsner?). However, on October 1,
under pressure from the sergianist bishops, he served in the cemetery
church, commemorating the name of Metropolitan Sergius.
What happened next was described by Hieromartyr Nectarius, Bishop of
Yaransk, his fellow-prisoner on Solovki, who heard it from Vladyka Hilarion
himself: “Shortly before this [service in the cemetery church], he had a very
frightening dream. It was as if he trampled the Smolensk Hodigitria icon of
the Mother of God under foot. And what then? After serving the liturgy with
the sergianist bishops, instead of receiving spiritual consolation and
joy, he began to feel terrible pangs of conscience and depression of spirit,
‘and the sergianist apostasy,’ he told me, ‘became quite clear to me – I had
turned out to be a participator in the sergianist crimes against the
Orthodox Church.’ And what then? At that very moment he declared to the
sergianist bishops that he was leaving them and returning to his former
ecclesiastical position with Bishops Victor, Nectarius, Demetrius and the
others.”
In September, 1931, he, together with Archbishop Seraphim of Uglich and
Archbishop Pachomius of Chernigov, was sent to work on the White Sea canal.
In 1933 he was released, and settled in Kozmodemyansk in the Mari
autonomous republic. He was arrested on April 25, 1934, and released on
October 13, the case being shelved on October 17. From 1935 to 1937 he was in exile
in Cheboksary, where he served in secret. He did not recognize the
sacraments of the sergianists, and used to repeat the sacraments of baptism and
marriage performed by sergianists. In the summer of 1937 he visited Bishop
Sergius (Druzhinin) in exile and urged him to remain faithful to Orthodoxy.
Later that year he was arrested, and on August 28 was sentenced to be shot.
The sentence was carried out on August 31, 1937 (new style) In
Yosh-kar-Ola.
(Sources: Russkiye Pravoslavnye Ierarkhi, Paris: YMCA Press, 1986, p. 36;
M.E. Gubonin, Akty Svyateishago Patriarkha Tikhona, Moscow: St. Tikhon’s
Theological Institute, 1994, p. 973; Lev Regelson, Tragediya Russkoj Tserkvi,
1917-1945, Moscow: Krutitskoye patriarsheye podvorye, 1996, pp. 539, 602;
Pravoslavnaya Zhizn’, 49, no. 2 (566), February, 1997, pp. 19-20;
Protopresbyter Michael Polsky, Novye Mucheniki Rossijskiye, Jordanville, 1957,
part 2, pp. 123-124; Bishop Ambrose (von Sievers), “Istoki i svyazi Katakombnoj
Tserkvi v Leningrade i obl. (1922-1992)”, report read at the conference
“The Historical Path of Orthodoxy in Russia after 1917″, Saint Petersburg,
1-3 June, 1993; “Katakombnaya Tserkov’: Kochuyushchij Sobor 1928 g.”,
Russkoye Pravoslaviye, N 3 (7), 1997, p. 20; “Episkopat Istinno-Pravoslavnoj
Katakombnoj Tserkvi 1922-1997gg.”, Russkoye Pravoslaviye, N 4(8), 1997, p. 5;
no. 3 (17), 1999, p. 35; Za Khrista Postradavshiye, Moscow: St. Tikhon’s
Theological Institute, 1997, p. 491; Victor Antonov, “Yeshcho raz o
svyashchennomuchenike Sergii (Druzhinine), Pravoslavnaya Zhizn’, 48, N 2
(578), February, 1998, p. 21; M.V. Shkarovsky, Iosiflyanstvo, St. Petersburg, 1999,
pp. 285-286; (http://www.pstbi.ru/bin/code.exe/frames/m/ind_oem.html?/ans) )

Via Vladimir Moss