Daniel the Stylite

Daniel the Stylite was a Christian monk and pillar-dwelling ascetic of the fifth century whose life was spent largely on the European shore of the Bosporus near Constantinople. According to the Greek Life written by a disciple not long after his death, he was born in the village of Maratha in the district of Samosata in Mesopotamia, a date corresponding to about 409 if the Life's statement that he died at eighty-four is accepted. At about the age of twelve he entered a monastery in that region and received the monastic habit. He remained there for many years, already noted for austerity and obedience. Hearing of Simeon Stylites the Elder, he obtained permission to visit him in Syria. Simeon received him and, according to the Life, foretold that Daniel would himself become a stylite.

After the death of his abbot, Daniel left the monastery. He intended at one point to go to the Holy Land, but visions and circumstances directed him instead toward the imperial capital. He reached the neighborhood of Constantinople and first lived as a hermit at the church of the Archangel Michael at Anaplous. He later took up residence in an abandoned pagan temple, which the Life says he purified of demonic presence. Inspired by Simeon's example and, after Simeon's death in 459, reportedly receiving the elder's cloak, Daniel mounted a pillar prepared for him around 460. He remained a stylite for thirty-three years and three months, occupying more than one column as disciples and patrons built higher or more durable structures.

From the pillar he taught, blessed, and adjudicated disputes for a constant stream of visitors that included sailors, townsfolk, monks, and high officials. Patriarch Gennadius of Constantinople ordained him to the priesthood while he still stood on the column, so that the Eucharist could be celebrated there. Emperors Leo I and Zeno sought his intercession and counsel. Daniel was a resolute supporter of the Council of Chalcedon. In 475-476, when the usurper Basiliscus issued an encyclical attacking Chalcedonian doctrine, Daniel descended from his pillar, an exceptional act, and entered Constantinople in a public demonstration that helped force a reversal of imperial policy. He then returned to his column. In later years he continued to be regarded as a living symbol of orthodoxy and as a protector of the city.

Daniel died on 11 December 493, at about eighty-four years of age, during the reign of the emperor Anastasius I. He was buried at the foot of his pillar at Anaplous, where a church and monastic community developed around his tomb and column. Veneration began at once; his feast is observed on 11 December in the calendars of the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church. The principal narrative source remains the contemporary Life of Daniel the Stylite, which, despite hagiographical conventions, is generally treated by historians as a relatively well-informed witness to his career and to religious life in fifth-century Constantinople.