SAINT-SIMÉON

Bishop Théodoret de Cyr owes the biography of the saint. Born in 389 at Sis, between Cilicia and Syria, the young Simeon is shocked by the words of the Gospel. He then attends a ascetics retreat from his region and went to the monastery of Teleda where he spent ten years of his existence fighting Evil.
Continuing along this path, he joins the monastery of Telanissos (the present Deir Samaan) where he remains recluse three years. But anachorite wants more. He decides to isolate himself on the nearby hill in a restricted space that he defines by an enclosure. The reputation of this ascetic is beginning to exceed the framework of Telanissos. We come a long way to get his blessings. It is then that he designs the project permanently at the top of a column. Twelve metres high, it preaches ever more crowds and has a great reputation in the Bedouin, some of which are converted to Christianity. To protect it from the pilgrims'assaults, the column is even enhanced at a height of sixteen metres and surrounded by railings.
This form of new asceticism will spread in the East. The stylite (of the Greek stûlos which means "column") will do school especially in the dead cities. In contrast to the first monks who, in Egypt in the fourth century, withdrew from the world by settling in the desert (Saint Antoine was the first of them), Syrian stylites, on the model of Saint Benedict and Saint Basile, maintain contact with the population that they urged faith. Atarib is another hermit in the region, removed not far from Bab al-Hawa.
For forty years, Saint Simeon prêchera from the top of his column by all the time. At his death, in 459, his remains were transferred to the church of Constantine in Antioch and then to Constantinople. In 476, probably under the impetus of the Byzantine emperor Zénon, a martyrium is founded - a monumental construction whose remains are admired today.
Fourteen years of work is required, the architects come from the surrounding areas; we will look for arms to Antioch. The pilgrimage centre at Deir Samaan operated until the th century. It was even restored during the Byzantine recovery of the th century before permanently falling with the whole massif.