Simeon Stylites on his pillar

Simeon, born around 390 at Sis in Cilicia, entered a monastery before he was sixteen, but his extreme austerities led the monks to ask him to leave. He then lived as a hermit near Telanissos, north-west of Aleppo, where so many people came to seek his counsel and prayers that he had no time left for his own devotions. Around 423 he climbed onto a pillar that stood among ruins nearby. The first was little more than 3 metres high; later pillars were higher, the last reportedly more than 15 metres, with a platform of about a square metre surrounded by a balustrade. There he spent the rest of his life praying, writing letters, instructing disciples and preaching to the crowds below, especially against swearing and usury.

Theodoret, bishop of Cyrrhus, who knew him, wrote about him as an eyewitness; his disciple Antonius and a Syriac Life, dated 473, followed. Theodosius II and the empress Eudocia held him in great respect, and Emperor Leo I paid heed to his letter in support of the Council of Chalcedon. Simeon died on 2 September 459; the patriarch of Antioch led his funeral, and Antioch and Constantinople contended for his remains. Between about 473 and 490 a great pilgrimage church was built around his pillar: four basilicas radiating from an octagon with the column at its centre. Its ruins, Qal'at Sim'an, are part of the Ancient Villages of Northern Syria, a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2011.

Pilgrim tokens bearing Simeon’s image have been found across the Byzantine Empire, and for the next century stylites were a common sight throughout the Christian Levant. The start of his life on the pillar is dated to about 423; accounts of how long he lived on pillars range from 35 to 42 years.