Simeon Stylites

Simeon was a Christian ascetic in fifth-century Syria who took self-denial to a height no one had attempted before. Around 423, he climbed onto a pillar and stayed there for the next 36 years, preaching and praying from his perch near Aleppo until his death on 2 September 459. The spectacle drew pilgrims, skeptics, and eventually a string of imitators — later stylites who copied his model of vertical isolation. The Greek word for pillar, style, became shorthand for the movement he began. He is venerated as a saint across Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox traditions, and known f…