The Syrian saint who sat atop a pillar for 36 years

The Basilica of St Simeon in northern Syria. Photo / Jill Worrall

Scarlet anemones beaded with raindrops from a spring shower dot the hillside below what was once the most important church in the world. Built in the 5th century it would be hundreds of years before another church was constructed to rival it.

What makes the 5th century Basilica of St Simeon even more remarkable is that it is not in Europe, or in Turkey or even in Palestine - it is found on a flower and stone-strewn hillside in northern Syria, about an hour's drive from Aleppo.

There are actually four basilicas, clustered together to form a cross. Although earthquakes and demolition by passing armies have destroyed some of the structures, there are enough beautiful floral carvings and a wonderfully graceful three-arched portal to make it easy to imagine how magnificent St Simeon once was.

Even on a day beset with sudden squalls of rain and a chill wind sweeping in from the Turkish mountains not far to the north, St Simeon is stunning. But what makes it truly remarkable is the story behind its existence.

The entire complex of churches, and its separate baptistery and monks' quarters, was built by decrees by a Byzantine emperor to honour a man who started life in complete anonymity as a farm boy on the hills nearby.

By the time of his death in 459 Simeon was one of the most famous living figures in Christendom.

He achieved this apparently completely unwanted fame by never actually leaving the same place for nearly 40 years.

Simeon was the first of the stylites or pillar sitters. He spent 36 years atop a stone pillar that at the time of his death was 18 metres above the ground.

Simeon's extraordinary lifestyle began at the age of 20 when he had a revelation and felt moved to join a monastery. It seems though that the monastic lifestyle was not rigorous enough for him as Simeon took to piercing himself with spikes, chaining himself to rocks and even burying himself up to the neck in the heat of the Syrian summer.

Such behaviour began to attract the attention of other early Christian believers who came to Simeon in search of blessings and presumably answers to knotty theological problems.

To avoid the crowds Simeon decided to perch on a three-metre-high stone column out of reach but this seemed only to serve to heighten the interest in him, so Simeon increased the height of his pillar until eventually it towered 18 metres above the growing number of pilgrims.

Today the pillar is a mere stump in the centre of the basilica due to the predations of centuries of souvenir hunters - presumably all of whom were working on the principle that "it can't hurt to take just a little bit..."

As I gazed at the rain-washed remains I couldn't help wondering if Simeon was just a little perverse.

Burying oneself up to the chin or piercing oneself with spikes hardly seemed the actions of someone wanting a quiet life, nor did the actual perching in full view on an increasingly lofty pillar.

Gazing at the remains of Simeon's perch prompted other questions.

How come he didn't fall off and how did he get food?

Apparently Simeon had a railing built around the top of the pillar and food was brought to him once a week by his disciples and then hauled skywards. No-one seems to know what his toileting arrangements were...

Would it be possible physically to endure 36 years (apparently during most of the time Simeon stood upright)?

It seems Simeon developed a prayer ritual involving bending down to touch his toes 100 times at one go which undoubtedly helped; he apparently refused ever to talk to or even to have women within sight, including his own mother.

It's easy for us from a scientific and cynical age to have doubts about Simeon the Stylite.

We can't help wondering if he slid down his pillar at night to walk among the sighing pine trees or brush through the spring flowers; but for the people of a different age his saintliness was undoubted.

And more than 1500 years later people are still visiting to wonder at his life, to admire the ruins that were once the wonder of Christendom.

In a little microcosm of this region's religious complexity today it is often Muslim guides who expound the story of St Simeon, mostly to visitors from the at-least-token Christian West.

They often seem to have a greater understanding of him than their often slightly bemused audience.

- Jill Worrall

Pictured above: The Basilica of St Simeon in northern Syria. Photo / Jill Worrall