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Biography

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Simeon Stylites the Younger, also known as Symeon the Wonderworker and Simeon of the Admirable Mountain, was born in 521 in Antioch, a leading city of Byzantine Syria. His father, John, was a native of Edessa, and his mother, Martha of Antioch, is herself venerated as a saint. John died while Simeon was still a small child, and Martha raised her son in a devout Christian household. Hagiographical tradition presents the boy as marked by unusual piety from his earliest years. At about the age of six he was taken into the care of a monastic community near Antioch associated with an elder named John, who lived as a stylite. There Simeon adopted the same form of extreme asceticism that had been made famous in the previous century by Simeon Stylites the Elder: remaining for years upon a pillar, given over to prayer, fasting, and the reception of those who came for spiritual counsel.

After occupying lower columns for a time, he settled on a mountain to the southwest of Antioch that came to be called the Wondrous Mountain or Admirable Mountain (Thaumaston Oros). A monastery formed around the base of his pillar. Simeon was ordained a priest and took part in the liturgy from the column, the eucharistic gifts being carried up to him. The principal Greek Life, a long narrative composed by a contemporary or near-contemporary, attributes to him numerous miracles of healing, exorcism, and prophecy, and portrays him as a supporter of Chalcedonian orthodoxy in a region where Miaphysite Christianity was widespread. Pilgrims of many ranks, including officials of the imperial administration, visited the mountain. His mother Martha spent her later years nearby and died there; a separate Life of Martha is extant.

The monastic and church complex on the Wondrous Mountain became a major pilgrimage site. Substantial ruins of the church, the platform of the saint's column, and related buildings survive in the Hatay region of present-day Turkey, near Antakya, the successor of ancient Antioch. Simeon remained on the pillar for most of his adult life. He died on 24 May 592, the date preferred by most modern historians, although some older reference works give 597. He was buried at the monastery on the mountain. His cult spread through the Byzantine East and was known in the medieval Latin West. The principal feast is 24 May in Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic calendars. As an early saint he was never the object of a later formal papal canonization; his status rests on continuous liturgical veneration and on the hagiographical record.

Almost all that can be said of his biography derives from the Greek vita and related texts. Like other sixth-century saints' lives, these sources mix a core of historical information with cycles of miracles and conventional ascetic motifs. Independent corroboration of particular episodes is scarce, but the existence of this stylite, the location of his monastery, and his sixth-century date are well established. He is distinct from Simeon Stylites the Elder, who died in 459 and whose pillar stood at Qal'at Sim'an farther to the east, and from other later ascetics who bore the name Simeon.

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