Saint Symeōn [Gk. Συμεών ὁ Στυλίτης, Ar. Sim‘ân al-‘Amûdî سمعان العمودي] was born around the year 386 in a village called Sis, which is in the Jabal al-Lukkam in the region of Kilikia (modern-day İslâhiye near the Turkish-Syrian border). His parents were Syriac-speaking Christians – his father may have had the Greek name of Syphōkiōn or Sisōtiōn, and his mother may have been named Martha, though this appears to be a confusion with St Martha the mother of the younger Symeōn Stylitēs – and they had him baptised ‘when he was small’. He, along with his brother Shemsi, were the only two of their parents’ many children who lived to adulthood. Saint Symeōn worked tending his father’s animals, and spent long days labouring in the pastures. Symeōn was not literate – even as a young adult his hagiography indicates he had little knowledge of the Scriptures. These three facts taken together indicate that his parents were not well-off, and may be counted as among the rural fallahîn of their day.
Early on, young Symeōn showed certain dispositions for the life of seclusion and holiness. He worked tirelessly for his father. As a result, although he was small and scrawny in stature, still he was nimble on his feet, deft with his hands, and capable in the strength of his body. As he worked in the pastures he collected resin from the sweetgum trees, and burned it as incense, even though he did not yet understand the importance of this. Even though he had no direct knowledge of the Scriptures, still he was cheerful in disposition, gentle in demeanour and loving in his actions to all. He made sure that his brother and his fellow-workers, those whom he met, ate their fill before eating himself – if he ate at all.
When he was thirteen years old and tending his father’s flocks he entered a Church, roughly 60 kilometres away from what is now Aleppo, where he heard the Epistles of St Paul being read. He asked the elder in the Church what the meaning was of the passage that he had read, and what it meant to fear God. The elder, who was a bit sceptical of this rustic child asking him such serious questions, asked him why he wanted to know. Symeōn humbly replied that it was because he was ignorant and unlearned that he wished to know about God. The elder replied to him that if he kept the fasts, prayed continuously, humbled himself before his neighbours, loved his father and mother, and obeyed God’s commandments through His priests, then he would inherit the Kingdom. The elder then told him that these things could best be done in a monastery. Symeōn then fell on his face before the elder and resolved to follow the ways of God.
When he was eighteen, Saint Symeōn presented himself to the abbot of the same elder, whose name was Timothy, and begged to be admitted into the fellowship. After ascertaining that the youth was not a criminal or fleeing a debt, Abba Timothy allowed Symeōn to join the monastery and handed him to the brothers to teach him the rules. The first four months he spent there without complaint or trouble, diligently learning the Psalter. Whatever he was given, whether food or money, he gave it to the poor, eating for himself only once every week. He also imposed in secret an ascetic extremity upon himself of binding his flesh with a coarse, heavy rope from the monastery well.
The other monks began to complain about him, that he was following his own rule rather than the rule of the abbot. This was a very serious charge, as it showed to them that Saint Symeōn had not mastered the cœnobitic discipline of obedience but rather followed his own will. Upon discovering that he had bound his flesh with the rope, the abbot became angry and told Symeōn to leave the monastery – but not before the brothers had tended to his festering wounds from the rope and nursed him back to strength. Symeōn went in solitude to an old dry well where many unclean spirits dwelt, and these spirits went and assailed the abbot with loud voices, clamouring for him to give them Symeōn. By this Abba Timothy understood that Symeōn was in fact a holy youth, driven not by pride or by vainglory but instead by a sincere humility. Abba Timothy begged Symeōn to return, and even sent five brothers to bring him back by force. At the monastery Abba Timothy and all the brothers prostrated themselves at Saint Symeōn’s feet and begged his forgiveness for their sin against him, but Symeōn heaved a great sigh, fell on his face in reply, and asked the monks not to add to his burden as an unhappy sinner – and further agreed to accept Abba Timothy’s rule as a father and as a servant of God. He stayed in that monastery a year longer.
When Saint Symeōn left again, he removed himself to a small cell of dry stone walls nearby the monastery, by the village of Galanissa, and stayed there for three years. Many folk went and sought him there to ask his guidance and prayers. Then he beheld a vision of a man in a splendid raiment, who told him to take the stones of that place and build himself a pillar, on which he would stand in constant prayer, exposed to the elements. He built his little pillar four cubits – about two metres – high, and lived on top of it for four years. His reputation for wisdom and holiness continued to spread, and throngs of people came to him. Desiring further solitude, Saint Symeōn built his column again and it became 12 cubits (6 m) high, and he lived upon it for twelve years. The same crowd again came to him and disturbed his peace, and he built his column again 20 cubits (9 m) high, and he lived upon it for another twelve years. Then the people built two cathedrals near him, and another column which was 30 cubits (14 m) high. He lived upon this column for four years.
During this time he worked numerous wonders. Those who came to him possessed by devils were exorcised. Those who came to him with diseases and infirmities, even leprosy, were healed of them. Those who came blind were restored their sight, and those who came to him deaf were restored their hearing. By means of his holy life and deeds of mercy, Saint Symeōn converted many to the Christian faith. Among these, Saracens, Persians, Armaceni, Laoti and other ‘strangers’ (allophyli) are mentioned in his Life. Another account mentions Persians, Medes, Saracens, Ethiopians, Iberians [i.e. Georgians] and Scythians among those who held the Stylite in veneration.
The Life of Saint Symeōn recounts one of his temptations by the Evil One, who disguised himself as an angel of light and appeared to the saint in a fiery chariot, beckoning him to be taken bodily into heaven. Saint Symeōn lifted his right foot to ascend the chariot, and then lifted his right hand to make the sign of the Cross. As soon as he had made the Cross, the angel and chariot vanished like vapour, and thus Symeōn knew this apparition to be of the Devil. In shame, Saint Symeōn spoke to his foot: ‘Don’t come back down, but stay like that until my death, until the Lord summons me, a sinner!’
His thigh had been wounded by the Devil, and this wound soon festered and became infested with maggots. The assistant of the stylite, a youth named Antûn, witnessed this. Symeōn asked Antûn to bring him back up the pillar those maggots which had fallen off him, and doing so the saint put them back on his leg, bidding them eat what the Lord had given them. When a certain Saracen king (basilikos) went to visit him, a maggot fell from the pillar and the king ran and caught it in his hands. Saint Symeōn asked why he did that, for such a thing made him feel ashamed. But the king told the saint that it was in fact no maggot, but instead a precious pearl – and so it was. Saint Symeōn told the king that it was given to him as such for his faith, and the king took it and withdrew.
At one time the saint’s mother came to visit him, but in general women were not allowed to enter the place where his pillar was. When he heard her voice, Symeōn called out to her: ‘Wait just a little while and we shall see each other again, God willing.’
His mother began to weep and loose her hair, and asked him: ‘My son, why do you do this? As thanks for bearing you I am filled with grief. For the milk I have fed you you have given me tears. For the kisses I showered you with, you gave me back pains of the heart. And for the labour with which I raised you you gave me the most painful wounds.’
This saying caused Saint Symeōn, and all who were with him, to weep. He bade her: ‘Dear mother, be at peace a little while, and we shall see each other in the place of eternal rest!’
His mother continued to entreat him to let her look upon him, not as a stranger in the kingdom of heaven but as her own flesh and blood in this life – or at least, that she might die swiftly so that she might the sooner see him, and his father who had already gone before. Three days and nights she spent at the foot of his column, and on the fourth she gave up the spirit, and the monks picked up her body and brought it up to Saint Symeōn. Saint Symeōn wept over his mother’s body and prayed to God that she might enter into the company of His saints. After this, the people built a pillar for Saint Symeōn, 40 cubits (18 m) high, upon which he lived for sixteen years, until he died.
Saint Symeōn wrought many more wonders upon his new pillar. One of these is an intriguing, peaceable variation on the hagiographic tales of ascetics who slay dragons. In Saint Symeōn’s Life, there was a dragon that lived near him in the region of Aquilo, which had taken a splinter of wood in its eye and lived in great agony and blindness. The dragon slithered its way to Saint Symeōn’s pillar, twisted itself into coils in humility, and then prostrated itself before the saint of God. Saint Symeōn prayed over the serpent, and pulled the sliver out of its eye. It measured a cubit in length. Although the crowds kept their distance out of fear of the dragon, they praised God when they saw that Symeōn had healed it. The dragon lay there prone for a long while as the people walked past, and then it gathered itself up, bowed its head in the direction of the monastery, and went in peace back to its den. No one came to any harm. This episode is intriguing in that the saint healed rather than slew the serpent.
There are numerous other miracles in Saint Symeōn’s Life, which says of these that they are too many to count. He cured a certain woman of an intestinal worm three cubits long, when no doctor could dislodge the parasite. He caused a bountiful holy spring to appear in a cleft in the earth on the eastern side of Abba Timothy’s monastery, during a season of dire drought. His prayers, uttered over earth from the monastery, felled a man-eating leopard that was terrorising the countryside and killing fallahîn and their animals. Two petitioners who came to Saint Symeōn’s pillar after having killed a pregnant doe were stricken dumb on account of their crime; the doe was laid with reverence within the monastery walls.
There is another tale of an Antiochian brigand named Ionathas, who committed many evil crimes. When the authorities caught up with him, he ran to earth and sought sanctuary at the base of Saint Symeōn’s pillar. He confessed his many crimes and wicked deeds to the holy man, and he spoke of his desire to repent. Saint Symeōn enjoined him sternly not to try him, or to return to his life of crime. When the authorities came to the monastery seeking Ionathas, they bade the saint give the brigand up to them. They also recounted to Symeōn his many crimes, told him that he had already been tried, found guilty and sentenced to be fed to wild beasts, and said that there would be a riot in Antioch if he were not brought to justice.
Symeōn answered them thus: ‘He who led him here is greater than I. He protects people like this, for such is the kingdom of heaven. But if you feel you are able to enter here, come and seize him. I will not do so myself, for I fear the Lord God who sent him here.’
The authorities began to tremble. None of them moved to lay hold upon Ionathas. Instead they left the monastery for Antioch, where they told of what had happened. For a full week thereafter, Ionathas clung to the base of Saint Symeōn’s pillar. At the end of the seven days, he begged Symeōn’s permission to leave. The saint chided the bandit for being so eager to go back to his wicked life. But this was not what Ionathas meant. He gave up the ghost, then and there at the base of the pillar.
When word reached Antioch of the brigand’s death, again the authorities came to claim the body. But Saint Symeōn again answered them: ‘He who led him here came with a company of the heavenly host. He has the power to cast your whole city and everyone in it down to hell. He has welcomed this man’s soul to him, and I was fearful that He might also take me. So please cause no more trouble to me, the humble sinner.’ Upon hearing this, the Antiochian authorities again departed in great fear, and told of what had happened.
It was the custom of Saint Symeōn to make a full prostration upon his pillar every Friday. One Friday he did not arise, even the Sunday following. His assistant Antûn became afraid, and climbed up the pillar to find his master making no response to him. Only after a long while did Antûn stoop down to listen for Saint Symeōn’s breath, only to find there was no life within him – only the sweet odours of balsam and incense rose from his body. Antûn wept bitterly over his master’s body, kissed his eyes and made him decent, and then began to lament his departing. Saint Symeōn then appeared in a vision to Antûn, and told him that he would not abandon the pillar or the monastery or the people that he loved, but had gone to his rest in the Lord – and then exhorted Antûn to continue his labours diligently.
Antûn reported his master’s death to the Bishop of Antioch – at that time it would have been Martyrios – and to the Roman Army commander Ardaborios. They came with a great throng, brought down the saint’s body and laid it upon the altar. As they did so, birds flew overhead such that everyone could see and hear, singing songs of mourning. The outpourings of grief could be heard, Antûn tells us, for seven miles around, and even the mountains, fields, trees and sky wept.
As he lay in state upon the altar, Bishop Martyrios of Antioch tried to clip a portion of the saint’s beard to keep for a relic, but the hand that tried it was stricken with paralysis, and only after many prayers were spoken over him was he healed. Thereafter the Bishop forbade anyone – including himself – to touch the body, which was a source of grief to many in the region.
As the bier bearing Saint Symeōn passed Meroë, a man who had been deaf and dumb for forty years passed in front of the procession. This deaf-mute man had coveted another man’s wife when he was younger, and then broken into her tomb after she died, which was why he had been thus stricken. He fell to the ground before the saint, and began to speak, giving thanks to the saint for the gift of his speech and for forgiveness of his sin, and pledged to watch over and serve the saint as long as he lived.
Saint Symeōn was brought into Antioch, and the entire town turned out of their homes with gifts of gold and silver, singing psalms and hymns to bring him in procession into the church, before being returned to be buried near his pillar. This had been a matter of great dispute between Antioch and Constantinople, both of which claimed his relics for their own, but Antioch had the stronger claim to the saint as the pillar had been Saint Symeōn’s dwelling-place for so many years – though later Byzantine soldiers would exhume him and have him translated on dubious terms to Constantinople. Many wonders were wrought at his tomb, even more than he had done in life – and the deaf-mute who had been cured fulfilled his oath and served at the saint’s tomb until the day of his death.
Antûn, the faithful servant of the saint, had a new monastic church built around the saint’s relics at the base of the pillar. This is the Qal‘at Sim‘ân, or the ‘Fortress of Symeōn’. This church has been among the architectural victims of the bloody Syrian Civil War that has plagued the country since 2011. Occupation by the Kurdish YPG and the Sunnî fundamentalist Ahrâr aš-Šâm both took their toll on the building, though a Russian air strike hit the Qal‘at in May of 2016, badly damaging the site and knocking over what was left of Saint Symeōn’s pillar. The Turkish armed forces currently occupy the church, and have turned it into a military ‘observation post’. Holy Saint Symeōn, ascetic of the Syrian desert, elevated by the grace of God, pray unto God for us, and forgive us sinners!
Apolytikion to Saint Symeōn the Elder Stylite, Tone 1:
You were a pillar of patient endurance,
Having imitated the forefathers, O Venerable One:
Job in suffering, and Joseph in temptations.
You lived like the bodiless ones while yet in the flesh, O Symeōn, our Father.
Beseech Christ God that our souls may be saved.
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