Pillar saint

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The pillar saints Symeon Stylites the Elder (left) and Symeon Stylites the Younger (right) on an icon

As a pillar saint or stylite ( ancient Greek στῦλος stylos 'column') was first in the Eastern Church from the 4th / 5th. Century designates a monk who, as a sign of special asceticism, lived his life on the capital of a column.

Christian stylites

The pillar saints followed three ascetic principles: staying in one place permanently, being unhoused, and standing. The first pillar saint was Symeon Stylites the Elder .

The columns were of different heights (three meters and more), on the capital a plate was attached so that the ascetic could stretch out in peace. A railing provided protection from the fall, protection from rain and sun was refused. Some “standing” went so far that they did not lie down for a long time. The column saints received food and the Eucharist from ladders. From the 6th century onwards, various stylites were ordained priests or only mounted on their pillars after they were ordained . Some never left the pillars, others only on important occasions, during persecution, or because they had been elected bishop .

A Georgian monk has lived as a hermit on a 40-meter-high rock needle, the Kazchi Pillar , for more than two decades .

Possible non-Christian forerunners

According to Lucian of Samosata ( De Dea Syria 28–29), the worshipers of Dionysus also used to stand on pillars. This was done either to be closer to the gods or in memory of the Deucalionic Flood . They stood in Hierapolis Bambyke twice a year for seven days each on a column that had been erected in honor of the god Bacchus .

reception

The stylites and the motif of “sitting on the column” were received several times. However, the background here was not always religious, sometimes also critically motivated.

  • Various authors took up the motif in their works, such as Mark Twain (A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court) , Hugo Ball (Triptych Byzantine Christianity ), Umberto Eco (Baudolino) and Terry Pratchett (Small Gods) .
  • In the 20th century under the name pole-sitting a non-religious competition held where it was about as long as possible bear sitting on a pile.
  • The Mexican church-critical satire Simón del desierto by Luis Buñuel (1965) is based on the life of Simeon Stylites the Elder.
  • In his Vertigo project , the American artist David Blaine stood on a pillar in New York for almost two days.

Well-known stylites

St. Symeon Stylites heals a woman who has swallowed a snake (from the Weißenau Passionale , end of the 12th century)

literature

  • Hilarion G. Petzold: On the piety image of the holy pillars . In: Kleronomia , 4 (1972), pp. 251-266, ISSN  1105-2139 .
  • Hans Conrad Zander : When religion wasn't boring: the story of the desert fathers. Publishing house Kiepenheuer & Witsch, ISBN 3-462-02982-7 .
  • Ulrich Hübner: Column saints in the East Bank. In: Stephan Conermann, Jan Kusber (eds.): Studia Eurasiatica (= Asia and Africa 10). EB-Verlag, Schenefeld / Hamburg 2003, ISBN 3-930826-99-2 , pp. 139-161.

Web links

Commons : Column Saints  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: Column saints  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Wilhelm M. Gessel : Styliten. In: Lexicon for Theology and Church , 3rd edition. 9.1065.
  2. ↑ See Bernhard Kötting: Styliten (Säulenheilige). In: Lexicon for Theology and Church , 2nd edition. 9.1128 f.
  3. ↑ Monk has lived lonely on a pillar for 20 years . Welt Online , September 8, 2013; Retrieved July 6, 2016
  4. ^ Wieland translation, 184 f. ( Wikisource )