Day two of six based in Aleppo
Today - a day trip to the north-west: Cyrus, Ein Dara & the basilica of St Simon Stylites (Qalat Simeon)
St. Simeon pilgrimage site
The most beautiful and significant monument to religious building between Roman period of the 2nd century and northern European Christian masterpieces of the 11th century AD.
St. Simeon is a citadel 60 km north west of Aleppo, named after the hermit Saint Simeon (Sam'an); a shepherd from northern Syria, who became a monk after a revelation in a dream.
Following his death in 459 AD, Emperor Zenon ordered that a cathedral be built where the saint used to pray.
The layout was original, centering on the famous column from which St. Simeon used to preach. Four basilicas, arranged in the shape of a cross, opened into an octagon covered by a dome, in the center of which stood the holy column. A simplicity and harmony combine to make ruins of the Basilica of St. Simon a masterpiece of pre-Islamic art in Syria.
St. Simeon of Stylites, whilst raising himself up on his pillar of self-persecution, could never have guessed how much attention he was attracting to himself!
The Story of St. Simeon Stylites (388 - 459):
Born at Sisan in northern Syria in 388 AD. He is called stylite after the Greek word stylos meaning pillar.
As a shepherd boy, he was converted by the first sermon he ever heard. The priest spoke on the text, "Blessed are the pure in heart". On asking how best to become pure in heart and so see God, Simeon was told that joining a monastery was good, and he at once became a monk at the age of 16. He said he repeatedly heard a voice telling him to "dig ever deeper".
After ten years he obtained permission from his superiors to leave the monastery and become a hermit. He was called, he said, to give up movement. He built himself a round enclosure and shackled his leg to a chain fastened to a pole in the middle of it so that he could not leave. The bishop of Antioch ordered him to remove the chain, and Simeon immediately complied. But crowds had begun to come in ever-increasing numbers to ask for his prayers.
It was they who first made Simeon think of living higher up, out of their reach. He built a platform three metres high, to prevent people from grabbing him while he was at prayer. A bit of leather snipped from his garment was a valuable relic during his lifetime, so we can imagine his predicament. Besides, the whole point of his immobility was, in Simeon's mind, not only stability but also verticality. He was choosing Heaven, denying himself wandering, distraction, the horizontal. He built himself successive pillars, a six-meter one, an eleven-meter one, and finally a stylos 20 meters high and nearly 2 meters in diameter.
He ate as little as possible, and did his utmost never to sit or lie down: he would tie himself to a pole fixed to the top of his pillar so as to sleep upright, or, on laxer occasions, he would sleep leaning on the balustrade that also prevented him from blowing off his perch during storms. He had no roof, and no walls apart from the open balustrade; a leather garment, long hair, and a beard were all he had for protection against the elements. Modern people, masters of sewerage as we have become, shudder at the thought of what happened to his admittedly meagre excrement.
He prayed all night, bowing frequently and low (this being his only exercise): one witness stopped counting after his 1,244th bow. He slept very briefly towards dawn, and was ready to greet the crowds that thronged around him every day. Pilgrims came to Antioch in Syria from distant places--we hear of Arabs, Persians, Armenians, Spanish, British, French--and then walked a short distance into the country to where the saint's pillar stood. They would beg for his prayers, listen twice a day to his gentle, practical and briefly expressed thoughts, ask him to settle disputes, and pray for miracles that frequently occurred. Most of the time, however, the saint stood in silent prayer.
Simeon's fame spread throughout the Empire. The Emperor Theodosius and the Empress Eudocia greatly respected the saint and listened to his counsels, while the Emperor Leo paid respectful attention to a letter he sent in favor of the Council of Chalcedon. Once when Simeon was ill Theodosius sent three bishops to beg him to descend and allow himself to be attended by physicians, but Simeon preferred to leave his cure in the hands of God, and before long he recovered.
By the end of his life, Simeon was embodying his ideal of purity of heart with the unlettered shepherd's naïveté that never left him: he had reduced his distance from God in the most concrete manner he could imagine; he was like a flame burning atop a candle. He had "dug deeper" and ended up high, in this extraordinary place. Having left human society behind, he had made himself available to it unceasingly.
After spending 36 years on his pillar, Simeon died on 2 September 459. A contest arose between Antioch and Constantinople for the possession of Simeon's remains. The preference was given to Antioch, and the greater part of his relics were left there as a protection to the unwalled city.
St. Simeon inspired many imitators. After his death, Stylitism (living the life of a recluse on a pillar top in order to dedicate yourself completely to God) became a popular movement from the fifth to seventh centuries and again in the tenth and eleventh throughout the Byzantine Levant and near Aleppo, including St. Daniel the Stylite (also from Syria), St. Alypius and St. Simeon Stylites the Younger.
The ruins of the vast edifice erected in his honour and known in Arabic as the Qal’at Simân (the mansion of Simeon) can still be seen.
The Basilica of St. Simeon Stylites
The most beautiful and significant monument to religious building between Roman period of the 2nd century and northern European Christian masterpieces of the 11th century AD. At the time it was completed in 473 AD, it was considered the largest Cathedral in the world.
Situated on a hill top overlooking the town of Deir Samaan in the 'Afrin Valley, 60 km north west of Aleppo. Following the death of the Syrian Hermit Saint Simeon (Sam'an) the Stylite in 459, Emperor Zenon ordered that a cathedral be built where the saint used to pray.
The layout was original, centering on the famous column from which St. Simeon used to preach. Four basilicas, arranged in the shape of a Greek cross (it was also called the four-basilica church), opened into an octagon covered by a dome, in the center of which stood the holy column.
The east basilica is slightly larger than the others; it was the most important and held all the major ceremonies. Adjacent to the south wall of the eastern basilica is the chapel and the monastery. Opposite the southern basilica along the sacred road called the via sacra is the baptistery, which was built a little after the main church but is an important part of the pilgrimage complex. To the west of the baptistery is the processional route that leads towards Deir Samaan.
Deir Samaan first had the name of Telanissos and was founded to capitalize on the two fertile plains that surrounded it. In the 5th century AD, the community built a monastery there and in 412 St. Simeon came to join it. He later left the community to live alone in the hill above it. The best vestiges seen in Deir Samaan are the monumental arch that is at the beginning of the via sacra which leads to the cathedral on the hill. There are two monasteries, a bazaar, a few small dwellings, and a tomb chapel.
The remaining stump of what is reported to be the very pillar that supported the saint for all those years, greatly reduced today by the numerous pilgrims who have taken pieces away as holy relics.
