Venerable Hilarion of Pskov Lake (Gdov)

Venerable Hilarion of Pskov Lake (Gdov) was a 15th-century Russian ascetic of the Pskov land. He was a disciple of St. Euphrosynus of Pskov, founder of the Spaso-Eleazarov Monastery, and like his fellow disciples went on to establish his own monastic community in the Pskov region. Seeking solitude, Hilarion lived first as a hermit near a spring in the Dryazhno area, then in the Sosnovy Bor pine forest on the bank of the Zhelcha River, which flows into Lake Chudskoye (Peipus), subsisting on herbs and roots in fasting and prayer. Around 1460–1470 he founded there a monastery dedicated to the Protection (Pokrov) of the Mother of God — the Pskov-Ozersky or Gdov Monastery — and became its first abbot. Located on the border with the Livonian Order, the monastery endured repeated raids. St. Hilarion reposed on 28 March 1476 and was buried by the northern doors of the altar in the church he founded, where his relics remain. He is venerated in the Synaxis of Pskov Saints (1987) and the Synaxis of St. Petersburg Saints (2000).