St. Simeon the Stylite

The Byzantine calendar assigns to September 1st, as "saint of the day", the earliest and best known of the "stylites" - those ascetics who, on the top of a pillar, lived a life separated from the world. Such was the extraordinary life of Simeon in the 5th century. The Church seems to throw down a challenge to the world deliberately in inviting us, on the first day of the year, to contemplate a case so extreme that it constitutes a paradox. For the life of a stylite appears to be a negation of all the values honored by "reasonable", "civilized", "modern" man.

The history of Christian sainthood is full of such cases, which are in some ways a scandal. Of course, sainthood adapts itself to the conditions of each age and usually takes on some of the features of contemporary life. But it is good that, from time to time, a voice cries in the desert and sends out a strong call to renunciation and penitence. This call has never ceased being heard, and even in our day, hermit life still has a number of followers. In honoring Simeon the Stylite on the first day of the year, Eastern Christianity takes a clear stand; it shows that it neither disowns nor abandons heroic forms of sainthood.

The world does not understand; it either jeers or is indignant. For these belong to the kind of things Christ spoke of when he said: "I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou has hid these things from the wise and prudent, and has revealed them unto babes." (MT 11:25)