Simeon Stylites the Younger was a sixth-century ascetic of Antioch in Syria who passed nearly his entire life atop a pillar, devoting himself to prayer, fasting, and the spiritual care of those who came to him. By tradition he was born in 521 to pious parents, John and Martha; his mother, who is venerated as a saint in her own right, is recorded as having been directed in a vision by St John the Baptist to marry and bear a son dedicated to God. He is distinguished from the earlier and more celebrated Simeon Stylites the Elder, whose feast falls on September 1.
When Simeon was six years old, an earthquake struck Antioch and killed his father. According to the synaxarion he was in church at the time and, on leaving, became lost and was sheltered for seven days by a pious woman before being reunited with his mother. Still a child, he attached himself to a community of ascetics under the spiritual direction of a pillar-hermit named John, and a pillar was raised for him close to that of his elder. He remained near his master's column for several years, and later took up the ascetic life on a higher pillar, where he was ordained deacon.
Simeon eventually settled on a height near Antioch known as the Wonderful Mountain, also called the Admirable or Wondrous Mountain, where a monastery grew up around his pillar; the sources relate that the sick whom he healed built a church there in gratitude. In 560 he was ordained to the priesthood by Dionysius, Bishop of Seleucia. He became renowned for gifts of healing and prophecy, and his miraculous works were recorded by the contemporary church historian Evagrius. After laboring as a stylite for sixty-eight years, he reposed in 596 at about the age of seventy-five.
