The Life
Simeon was born around 390 in Cilicia (in modern southern Turkey) to Christian parents. He kept his father’s sheep as a boy. One day in the village church he heard the Beatitudes read aloud and was struck so that he could not put them out of his mind. At eighteen he entered a monastery, but his austerities were so extreme that he was eventually asked to leave. He withdrew into the solitude of a Syrian mountain. Crowds began to come to him for healing and counsel. To escape them, around 423, he climbed a small stone pillar and started to live on top of it. The pillar grew taller over the years — first six feet, then twenty, then forty, finally about sixty. He stayed on it for thirty-six years. The whole eastern empire came to the foot of his pillar. Patriarchs climbed up to celebrate the Liturgy with him; emperors wrote to him for counsel; pilgrims came from as far away as Britain. He reposed on the pillar in 459 at about sixty-nine, found by his disciple stooped over in prayer.
Simeon was a shepherd boy. From the age of thirteen he kept his father’s flock of sheep in the hills around the village of Sisan. He loved his sheep and tended them well. One day, in the village church for the Sunday Liturgy, he heard the Beatitudes read aloud as the Gospel: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven; blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted; blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” The boy was struck so that he could not put the words out of his mind. He found an experienced elder who explained the meaning of the Beatitudes to him. From that day on, Simeon’s heart was settled. He would give his life to the One who had spoken these words.
When Simeon was eighteen, he entered a monastery and received monastic tonsure. From the very first day he gave himself to feats of austerity beyond anything the other brothers could match. He fasted longer. He stood longer in prayer. He slept less. He worked harder. The abbot was alarmed. He warned Simeon that he must either moderate his austerity or leave the community. The other monks were beginning to feel rebuked simply by living next to him. Simeon, after testing his own vocation, withdrew. He shut himself up alone in a small hut for a year and a half and fasted through an entire Lent without food or drink. The brethren who eventually found him alive after this fast called it a miracle of grace.
After Simeon’s long Lent of total fasting and his withdrawal to the mountain of Telanissus, his fame spread across northern Syria. Pilgrims came in great numbers seeking healings, blessings, and counsel. The press of the crowds threatened to destroy the very solitude that had drawn them to him. Around the year 423, when Simeon was about thirty-three, he chose a previously unknown form of asceticism. He built a small stone pillar, six to eight feet high, with a tiny platform on top, and began to live continuously on it. The pilgrims could come to the foot of the pillar but could not press upon him. He could see them and speak with them but could not be touched by them. He devoted himself to fasting, prayer, and the singing of the Psalms on the small platform. The pillar would grow taller over the years.
For thirty-six years Simeon kept the same daily pattern on the pillar. He prayed standing upright for hours at a time. He bowed in repeated prostrations — a curious visitor once counted twelve hundred and forty-four such prostrations in a single session before giving up the count. He fasted continually, eating very little; through every Great Lent he took no food or water at all. He sang the Psalter through every day, often more than once. At appointed hours he received the pilgrims who came to the foot of the pillar, blessing them, healing them, counseling them. The Patriarchs of Antioch climbed up to celebrate the Liturgy with him on his small platform. The emperors wrote to him for guidance. The whole eastern empire watched a single soul wholly given to God on the top of a Syrian column.
Simeon’s mother Martha had not seen her son since he had left the village of Sisan many years earlier. After long searching she finally found him at the pillar of Telanissus. She came to the foot of the column and called up to him, longing to embrace her child once more. Simeon would not come down. He spoke to her from the top of the pillar with tenderness: “Mother, do not disturb me now. If we are worthy, we shall see one another in the life to come.” Martha submitted to her son’s vocation. She remained at the foot of the pillar for a long time in silent prayer. When her body at last gave way, she reposed there beneath the column. Simeon asked that her coffin be brought up to him. He kissed her forehead, wept over her, and prayed over her body with honor.
From his pillar Simeon shepherded the souls who came to him from every corner of the late Roman world. Pilgrims came from as far as Britain and Persia. Patriarch Domninus of Antioch climbed up to celebrate the Divine Liturgy with him on the small platform of the pillar. The Emperor Theodosius the Younger consulted him by letter and once sent three bishops to beg him to come down for medical treatment when he was sick; Simeon refused and was healed by his prayer. The Emperor Marcian, who convened the Council of Chalcedon in 451, respected him. The Empress Eudocia was returned from heresy to Orthodoxy through his counsel. The Emperor Leo paid careful attention to a letter Simeon wrote in support of the Council of Chalcedon. The whole eastern empire watched him.
The first of the Beatitudes was the verse that pierced the boy Simeon’s heart in his village church. He spent the rest of his life living it out in flesh and blood. He had nothing on the pillar except the small platform he stood on, the rough garment he wore, the food his disciples brought up to him, the daily Psalter he sang. He owned no thing in this world. He had given the kingdom of heaven everything else. The kingdom of heaven was, for him, the entire reality — the world below was simply the place where he prayed, fasted, and waited to be taken home. Simeon shows us, in extreme form, what the Beatitude actually means: the poor in spirit, who own nothing in this world because their entire treasure is in the kingdom of God, are the ones for whom that kingdom is already opening even now.
On the second of September, in the year 459, Simeon reposed quietly on his pillar. He was about sixty-nine. His disciple Anthony, who had been caring for him at the foot of the column, became concerned when the saint did not appear at the railing for three days to bless the pilgrims. He climbed the ladder to the top. He found his teacher already dead, stooped over in his familiar posture of prayer, with his head bowed almost to his knees. The pilgrims at the foot wept. Patriarch Martyrius of Antioch came in solemn procession with sixty bishops and many thousands of the faithful. They brought the body in great honor down to Antioch, where it was deposited in the church the Emperor Leo had built in his name. A great basilica was eventually raised at the pillar itself — the Qalaat Semaan, whose ruins stand to this day.
Simeon shows us, more dramatically than perhaps any other saint, that the soul wholly given to God becomes a beacon to which the world is drawn. He climbed his pillar to escape the crowds. The crowds came anyway, in greater numbers than before. He had not sought them; the Holy Spirit had drawn them to the place where a soul wholly given to God could be seen. The lesson is that we do not need to chase the world to minister to it. We need to give ourselves wholly to the Lord, in whatever vocation we have been given. The Lord himself will draw the souls he wishes to draw to the place where any of his servants is wholly given to him. Simeon’s pillar was visible from many miles around. The pillar of our own consecrated life, in our family, our parish, our work, our friendships, may not be physically visible. But it has the same effect when it is genuine. The Lord uses our wholly-given lives to reach the souls around us in ways we will never trace.