The Monk Simeon the Stylite
Commemorated on September 1
The Monk Simeon
the Stylite was born in the Cappadocian village of Sisan in the Christian
family of Susotian and Martha. At 13 years of age he began to tend his father's
flock of sheep. To this his first obedience he concerned himself attentively
and with love. One time, having heard in church the Gospel commands of the
Beatitudes, he was struck by their profundity. Not trusting to his own immature
judgement, he turned therefore with his questions to an experienced elder. The
elder readily explained to the lad the meaning of what he had heard and it
strengthened in him finally the resolve to follow the Gospel path. Instead of
heading homewards, Simeon set off to the nearest monastery and, after tears of
entreaty, he was accepted after a week into the number of the brethren. When
Simeon became age 18, he took monastic vows and devoted himself to feats of the
strictest abstinence and of unceasing prayer. His zealousness – beyond
strength for the other monastic brethren – so alarmed the hegumen (abbot) that
he suggested to the monk that he either moderate his ascetic deeds or leave the
monastery. The Monk Simeon thereupon withdrew from the monastery and settled
himself by day upon a very high column, where he was able to carry out his
austere vows unhindered. After some time, Angels appeared in a dream vision to
the hegumen, which commanded him to bring back Simeon to the monastery. The
monk however did not long remain at the monastery. After a short while he
settled into a stony cave, situated not far from the village of Galanissa, and
he dwelt there for three years, all the while perfecting himself in monastic
feats. One time, he decided to spent the entire Forty-day Great Lent without
food and drink. With the help of God, the monk endured this strict fast. From
that time he always completely refrained during the entire period of the Great
Lent even from bread and water – twenty days he prayed while standing, and
twenty days while sitting – so as not to permit the corporeal powers to relax.
A whole crowd of people began to throng to the place of his efforts, wanting to
receive healing from sickness and to hear a word of Christian edification.
Shunning worldly glory and striving again to find his lost solitude, the monk
chose a yet unknown mode of asceticism. He went up a pillar 4 meters in height
and settled upon it in a little cell, devoting himself to intense prayer and
fasting. Reports about the Monk Simeon reached the highest church hierarchy and
the imperial court. The Antioch Patriarch Domninos II ((441-448) visited the
monk, made Divine Liturgy on the pillar and communed the ascetic with the Holy
Mysteries. Fathers pursuing asceticism in the wilderness all heard about the
Monk Simeon, who had chosen such a difficult form of ascetic striving. Wanting
to test the new ascetic and determine whether his extreme ascetic feats were
pleasing to God, they dispatched messengers to him, who in the name of these
desert fathers were to bid the Monk Simeon to come down from the pillar. In the
case of disobedience they were to forcibly drag him to the ground. But if he
offered obedience, they were entrusted in the name of the desert fathers to
bless his continued ascetic deeds. The monk displayed complete obedience and
deep Christian humility.
The Monk Simeon was
brought to endure many temptations, and he invariably gained the victory over
them – relying not on his own weak powers, but on the Lord Himself, Who always
came to him in help. The monk gradually increased the height of the pillar on
which he stood. His final pillar was 40 cubits in height. Around him was raised
a double wall, which hindered the unruly crowd of people from coming too close
and disturbing his prayerful concentration. Women in general were not permitted
beyond the fence. In this the monk did not make an exception even for his own
mother, who after long and unsuccessful searchings finally succeeded in finding
her lost son. Not having gained a farewell, she thus died, nestled up to the
fence encircling the pillar. The monk thereupon asked that her coffin be
brought to him; he reverently bid farewell to his dead mother – and her dead
face then brightened up with a blissful smile.
The Monk Simeon spent
80 years in arduous monastic feats – 47 years of which he stood upon the
pillar. God granted him to accomplish in such unusual conditions an indeed
apostolic service – many pagans accepted Baptism, struck by the moral
staunchness and bodily toughness which the Lord bestowed upon His servant.
The first one to
learn of the end of the monk was his close pupil Anthony. Concerned that his
teacher had not appeared to the people over the course of 3 days, he went up
upon the pillar and found the dead body stooped over at prayer (+ 459). The
Antioch Patriarch Martyrios performed the funeral of the monk before an huge
throng of clergy and people. They buried him not far from the pillar. At the
place of his ascetic deeds, Anthony established a monastery, upon which rested
a special blessing of the Monk Simeon.
© 1996-2001 by translator Fr. S. Janos.
