St Hilary of Poitiers or Hilarious as he was known (from the Greek to be cheerful) was Bishop of Poitiers and lived from around 300 to 368 AD. He died on 13th January and this day is commemorated in the Roman Catholic calendar as St Hilary’s Day. Hilary was not raised as a Christian. He philosophised about the reason for human life on earth and what was its purpose, solely to satisfy human desires or for a more spiritual reason? He came across the Hebrew and Christian scriptures and from then on adopted Christianity.
At that time in the early 4th century many people followed the teachings of a Christian priest called Arius from Egypt. Arius was declared a heretic and his teachings renounced by the church. Hilary also counselled against the teachings of Arius and was therefore favoured by the established church. He became so popular in his hometown of Poitiers that around 353 AD he was voted to be bishop despite being a married man with a daughter. Hilary wrote to Emperor Constantius, who had leanings towards Arius, highlighting the crushing of Arius’ opponents by persecution but he was exiled, to an area that is now part of Turkey, for four years for his trouble. He returned to Poitiers around 361 AD and continued to preach but could not hold back from highlighting what he considered to be the heretical teachings of his opponents. So he wrote to the bishop of Milan and was summoned again to appear before the Emperor (now Valentinian). He lost the argument and was banished from Milan.
He died in 368 AD having spent the remaining few years of his life quietly studying the scriptures and was involved in the founding of a monastery at Liguagé. This may seem today a lot of effort to go to over differing views of the same faith, but Hilary believed he was fighting for the souls of his followers and therefore was vital to him.
There are some modern connections to St Hilary. The villages of St Hilary in Cornwall and Glamorgan are named after him and the church of sant’Ilario in Italy is dedicated to him. In academic circles the first term of each calendar year at both Oxford and Dublin universities is known as the Hilary term as St Hilary day falls within it. The other terms (Trinity and Michaelmas) are counted using a set number of Sundays before or after St Hilary’s day.
