By Sarah Levesque (Rated G)
Also known as St. Simeon the Elder, Simeon was born circa 390 in Sisan, Cilicia (modern Syria) to Sisotian and Martha. Simeon became a monk at the age of eighteen, but his habitual intense abstinence and extreme prayer habits made his superior decide to ask him to leave. Thus, Simeon became a hermit, first living in a dry well, then in a cave, and finally residing on a roughly seven foot pillar, as certain other hermits did at the time. This is where he gets the name “the Stylites” (from Greek stylos, meaning pillar). In time, he built his pillar higher and higher, until it stood 80 feet tall, with a double wall to prevent people from disturbing his prayer. Over the three decades and more that St Simeon stood on his eleven square foot pillar, apparently never laying down, many converted at the of the strength God had given Simeon to bear such burdens.
St. Simeon the Stylite died in 459, and was buried next to his pillar. May we, like St. Simeon, trust in the Lord unreservedly.
LogoSophia Magazine 