Stylites, Byzantine Era's Most Extreme Hermits

Stylites, Byzantine Era's Most Extreme Hermits

One of Stylites, Byzantine Era’s Most Extreme Hermit was St. Simeon Stylites. He was the first Christian saint to spend years atop a pillar as a form of discipline that enabled him to be closer to God. Credit: Historical Museum of Sanok, Poland/Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain Stylites, the men who practiced the most stringent form of asceticism in the early days of Christianity, took the urge to leave the world behind and become hermits to an ex…