Stylites (from Greek stylos, "pillar") or Pillar-Saints are a type of Christian ascetic who in the early days of the Byzantine Empire stood on pillars preaching, fasting and praying. They believed that the mortification of their bodies would help ensure the salvation of their souls. The first stylite was probably Simeon Stylites the Elder who climbed on a pillar in Syria in 423 and remained there until his death 37 years later.
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Palladius of Galatia (chapter 48) tells us of a hermit in Palestine who dwelt in a cave on the top of a mountain and who for the space of twenty-five years never turned his face to the west so that the sun never set on his face. St. Gregory of Nazianzus (Patrologia Graeca 37, 1456) speaks of a solitary who stood upright for many years together, absorbed in contemplation, without ever lying down. Theodoret assures us that he had seen a hermit who had passed ten years in a tub suspended in midair from poles (Philotheus, chapter 28).
There seems no reason to doubt that it was the ascetic spirit manifested in such examples as these which spurred men on to devise new and more ingenious forms of self-crucifixion and which in 423 led Simeon Stylites the Elder first of all to take up his abode on the top of a pillar. Critics have recalled a passage in Lucian (De Syria Dea, chapters 28 and 29) which speaks of a high column at Hierapolis Bambyce to the top of which a man ascended twice a year and spent a week in converse with the gods, but the Catholic Encyclopedia argues that it is unlikely that Simeon had derived any suggestion from this pagan custom. In any case Simeon had a continuous series of imitators, particularly in Syria and Palestine. Daniel the Stylite may have been the first of these, for he had been a disciple of Simeon and began his rigorous way of life shortly after his master died. Daniel was a Syrian by birth but he established himself near Constantinople, where he was visited by both the Emperor Leo and the Emperor Zeno. Simeon the Younger, like his namesake, lived near Antioch; he died in 596, and had for a contemporary a hardly less famous Stylite, Saint Alypius, whose pillar had been erected near Hadrianopolis in Paphlagonia. Alypius, after standing upright for 53 years, found his feet no longer able to support him, but instead of descending from his pillar lay down on his side and spent the remaining fourteen years of his life in that position. Roger Collins, in his Early Medieval Europe, tells us that in some cases two or more pillar saints of differing theological viewpoints could find themselves within calling distance of each other, and would argue with one another from their columns.
Saint Luke the Younger, another famous pillar hermit lived in the 10th century on Mount Olympus, but he also seems to have been of Asiatic parentage. Daniel the Stylite lived on his pillar for 33 years after being blessed by and receiving the cowl of St. Simeon the Stylite. There were many others besides these who were not so famous and even women Stylites were known. One or two isolated attempts seem to have been made to introduce this form of asceticism into the West but it met with little favour. In the East cases were found down to the 12th century; in the Russian Orthodox Church it lasted until 1461, and among the Ruthenians even later. For the majority of the pillar hermits the extreme austerity of the lives of the Simeons and of Alypius was somewhat mitigated. Upon the summit of some of the columns a tiny hut was erected as a shelter against sun and rain, and other hermits of the same class among the Miaphysites, lived inside a hollow pillar rather than upon it; but the life was one of extraordinary endurance and privation.
In recent centuries this form of monastic asceticism has become virtually extinct. However in modern day Georgia a monk of the Orthodox Church, Fr. Maxim, is restoring with aid from local villagers a small 1200 year old monastic chapel on top of Katskhi Pillar. The pillar is a natural rock formation jutting upwards from the ground to a height of approximately one hundred forty feet. It was known to be used by stylites as late as the 15th century when foreign occupation by the Islamic Ottoman Empire brought an end to the practice. Upon completion Fr. Maxim hopes to take up residence on top of Katskhi as a stylite monk. A film documentary on the project is planned.[1]