#stylitic

[artifacts-and-arthropods]

Medieval Hermitage atop Katskhi Pillar, in Georgia (South Caucasus), c. 800-900 CE: this church was built during the Middle Ages, and it sits atop an enormous limestone column that has been venerated as a "Pillar of Life" for thousands of years

Known as Katskhi Pillar (or Katskhis Sveti), this giant block of limestone is located in western Georgia (the country, not the state), about 10km from the town of Chiatura.

The church that stands atop Katskhi Pillar was originally constructed during the 9th-10th centuries CE. It was long used as a hermitage for Stylites, who are sometimes referred to as "Pillar Saints" -- Christian ascetics who lived, prayed, and fasted atop pillars, often in total isolation, in an effort to bring themselves closer to God. The Stylite tradition originated in Syria during the 5th century CE, when a hermit known as Simeon the Elder purportedly climbed up onto a pillar and then stayed there for nearly 40 years, giving rise (no pun intended) to Christian Stylitism.

Stylitism managed to survive for about 1,000 years after its inception, but it began to die out during the late Middle Ages, and by the end of the 16th century, it had essentially gone extinct.

Researchers don't really know how the monks who built this Medieval church originally gained access to the top of Katskhi Pillar, or how they were able to transport their building materials up to the top of the column. Evidence suggests that there were still monks/Stylites living atop Katskhi Pillar up until the 1400s, but the site was abandoned shortly thereafter. Georgia fell under Ottoman rule during the same period, but it's unclear whether or not that may have played a role in the abandonment of the site.

The hermitage at the top of Katskhi Pillar lay abandoned for nearly 500 years after that; no one was able to reach the top of the pillar, and very little was known about the ruins that lay scattered at the top, as knowledge of the site's origin/history was gradually lost over time. There are many local legends that ultimately arose in order to fill in those blanks.

The abandoned hermitage was not visited again until July 29th, 1944, when a mountaineer finally ascended to the top of the column with a small team of researchers, and the group was able to perform the first archaeological survey of the ruins. They found that the structure included three hermit cells, a chapel, a wine cellar, and a small crypt; within the crypt lay a single set of human remains, likely belonging to one of the monks who had inhabited the site during the Middle Ages.

A metal ladder (the "stairway to Heaven") was ultimately installed into the side of the pillar in order to make it easier for both researchers and tourists to gain access to the ruins.

The hermitage at the top of Katskhi Pillar actually became active again in the early 1990's, when a small group of monks attempted to revive the Stylite tradition. A Georgian Orthodox monk named Maxime Qavtaradze then lived alone at the top of Katskhi Pillar for almost 20 years, beginning in 1995 and ending with his death in 2014. He is now buried at the base of the pillar.

The hermitage is no longer accessible to the public, and it's currently uninhabited, but it is still visited by local monks, who regularly climb up to the church at the top of the pillar in order to pray. There is also an active monastery complex at the base of the pillar, where a temple known as the Church of the Simeon Stylites is located.

The Church of the Simeon Stylites: this church is located within an active monastery complex that has been built at the base of the pillar; several frescoes and religious icons decorate the walls of the church, and a small shrine containing a 6th century cross is located in the center

There are many lingering questions about the history of Katskhi Pillar, particularly during the pre-Christian era. There is at least some evidence suggesting that it was once the site of votive offerings to pagan deities, as a series of pre-Christian idols have been found buried in the areas that surround the pillar. According to local tradition, the pillar itself was once venerated by the pagan societies that inhabited the area, but it's difficult to determine whether or not those claims may simply be part of the mythos that surrounds Katskhi Pillar, particularly given its mysterious reputation.

Sources & More Info:

BBC: Georgia's Daring, Death-Defying Pilgrimage

CNN: Katskhi Pillar, the Extraordinary Church where Daring Monks Climb Closer to God

Radio Free Europe: Georgian Monk Renews Tradition, Lives Atop Pillar

Architecture and Asceticism (Ch. 4): Stylitism as a Cultural Trend Between Syria and Georgia

Research Publication from the Georgian National Museum: Katskhi Pillar

Journal of Nomads: Katskhi Pillar, the Most Incredible Cliff Church in the World

Georgian Journal: Georgia's Katskhi Pillar Among World's 20 Wonderfully Serene and Secluded Places

[postcard-from-the-past]

Church of Saint Simeon Stylites in Aleppo, Syria

Syrian vintage postcard

[saint-augustines-pears]

The fact that stylites exist boggles my mind

These guys really said shit man I wanna go sit on a pole for thirty years and everyone just went wow okay that’s awesome

[drachenwiki]

Today, January 5th, is the feast day of Simeon Stylites, who, in the 5th century, lived 37 years on a small platform on top of a pillar.

One day, a dragon came to Simeons pillar and laid down its head as if it was asking for help. When the dragon didn't go away for three days, Simeon asked his disciples to make a bed for the dragon from earth and water and then went down and found a stick in the dragon's eye. He pulled it out and the left after two hours without harming anybody.

[thesynaxarium]

Today we celebrate the Holy and Venerable Seraphim of Sarov the Wonderworker. Saint Seraphim is considered one of the greatest and well known saints of the 19th century. As a young child he fell ill and was visited by the Mother of God herself and healed him. From this time, he decided to dedicate his life to God as a monk. Living in complete obedience to his elders, Saint Seraphim grew exceedingly in virtue and prayer, surpassing many of his fellow monks. He ventured into the Sarov wilderness where he dwelt as a stylite on a pillar of rock for a thousand days in constant prayer. Once when approached by Motovilov and asked about the acquisition of the Holy Spirit, Saint Seraphim transformed before him like Christ on Mount Tabor, filling the young theologian with an indescribable peace and warmth. Saint Seraphim lived to around 70 years of age but prophesied that he would live well over 100. When asked to explain this prophesy, he said that in the last days he will resurrect from the grave like the Seven Youths of Ephesus and preach to the lost sheep of Russia. For his virtuous life, Saint Seraphim was granted the gift of wonder working before and even after his repose. May he intercede for us all + #saint #seraphim #sarov #seraphimofsarov #wonderworker #motherofgod #theotokos #monk #monastic #ascetic #pillar #stylite #wilderness #motovilov #transfiguration #christ #jesus #jesuschrist #orthodox #saintoftheday (at Nizhni Novgorod, Russia) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cm43DX4ByBC/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[savvysoliris]

I don't have the switch so I won't buy this unless it's very very good.

It looks cute although not what I wanted and I'm very excited to see how it will be possible to create our character.

But I'm very worried about the gameplay: I don't want to be walking around looking cute and pretending to be an influencer and that's it. I hope there's more to it, that there is a storyline too. I know it's not style savvy, it doesn't mean it has to be Stylit for switch.

I would have preferred less pastel, anime-like graphics though... I'm tired of this style, it looks like Stylit and it was a mobile game.

On a more positive note, the physics are much better, it seems like we have an open world, the styles are more diverse and we'll be able to color swap. I'm especially satisfied by the hairstyles.

I have a childhood friend who also played Style Savvy so I guess she'll buy this and I'll try it with her switch. If it's good I'll buy my own later.

[iplaygamesfortheoutfits]

i felt so smart for how i layered that lace top w/the blouse and coat for the outfit on the right

[catholic-saint-tournament]

I assume st. Veronica goes to the legendary figures list, right?

What about Simeon Stylites?

And do we count John the Baptist at all?

St Veronica would be folk/legend. Simeon and John would be pre-schism saints! These are the first votes for all three, so if you want them to be in a bracket, more propaganda needed!

[myrussianorthodoxjourney]

There is one saint from my hometown who took it upon himself to he a stylite; Saint Nikita. Reading his story, I cried because of how humble it was. How much he dedicated himself to the Lord and ultimately lost his life because of it. Saint Nikita, intercede for me. Lord have mercy on me, a sinner.

new thing i learned just now: in like 400 AD there was a monk named simeon stylites who used to live in a one room cell with a window but too many people kept bugging him for religious advice, so he climbed to the top of a pillar and shackled himself to it until he died 37 years later.

this became a cool new trend to the point where there were enough pillar monks of varying viewpoints that they would scream at each other all day

[sspacegodd]

He slept on his pillar, either sitting up or curled in a ball. He ate and drank sparingly, depending on the kindness of locals and the local monastery. Some say he was immediately provided with emergency clothes from the village hamper when his clothes wore out. Others say he would just stay atop the pillar naked when this happened.

Some accounts have him relieving himself over the side, the lower portions of his pillar covered in excrement and urine. Others, remembered a bucket.

[wilheminalibrary]

11/16/2023

Take This All of You and Eat It: Week 2 of November Writing Challenge

I am thirteen. I am in a church with stained glass windows that are older, bigger, and more beautiful than I will ever be, despite how much I yearn to be older, to be bigger, to be beautiful. The room is large and hot and quiet save for the shuffling wood of the pews, the dull hum of the unused organ, and the priest some fifteen feet away. The priest holds up a wafer and promises to make it into the flesh of a man. To make it real. I ring my little bells when it’s time and try not to fidget in my massive altar server’s robes. The priest, the man, is wearing long silk vestments in bright green. He looks like a stained glass window. Striking. I break the commandment about coveting my neighbor’s goods. I see this priest, his color and his silks. I covet. “This is my body.”

Growing up Catholic taught me a lot. The mysticism, the iconography, and the rituals all gave me the intoxicating feeling of being dropped like a single daub of paint into a millennia long portrait of blood and art and tears and prayers. I felt like I was part of something rich and gorgeous. Until, of course, I didn’t. Until, of course, it meant Catholic school and uniforms and confession and shame and sin and perdition. Until, of course, it meant looking up at the half-naked painted Savior and looking away, tasting his body on my tongue and struggling to swallow. I couldn’t dress like a girl except in the shadows and the trouble with shadows is that, without the light to see, everything looks like a sin.

Reading over my poetry throughout the month I've begun to notice a sneaky new theme slowly emerging throughout a good many of them. My Catholic upbringing rears its perpetually bowed head in, at this point, the majority of the month's labor. I reference rosaries and prayer and saints and transformation. So much of my journey into my flesh, my true flesh, has felt like making a Eucharist of myself, transubstantiating my boy into woman. I can take comfort, at least, in knowing I’m not alone in this. Writer Eve Tushnet, in her essay “Velvet and Pus: A Catholic Queer imagination,” writes:

“Even before I became Catholic I noticed this insistence on the meaning of the body—“meaning” in the sense that the body could be interpreted, that you could not only feel it but understand it (or misunderstand it). But also “meaning” in the sense of importance: the body means a lot.”

The saints explore their body’s relationship with Divinity constantly, a phenomenon explored brilliantly in visual artist Lizz Hamilton’s seminal podcast All Miracles Are Strange. In each episode Hamilton explores how men and women are venerated by disease, by wounds, by indignity.

As a trans woman I know a lot about indignity. My breasts ache. My stubble bickers with me. My newly long hair seems allergic to any kind of containment. My body rarely cooperates with me during sex. So much of me has changed. And yet, with each dose of hormones I feel closer to God. I feel a greater empathy for those like me. I feel the stones of my soft pink tomb rolled away. She is risen.

My transfiguration, pun intended, brings me more closely attuned with the religion of my childhood. Suddenly I am reading the Bible. I am praying the rosary. I am taking comfort in the idea of The Mysteries being the propulsive core of the faith. Too often we search for answers when we should be falling in love with the questions themselves, listening for the all-too-sweet whispers of answers within us. I want suddenly to drink wine with my girlfriends. I want to thank God for my body. I want to pray with every poem I write, and so I do.

Even when my body breaks itself slowly, softening itself and reducing its muscle mass, I am reminded of the holiness of transformative suffering. Psalm 2 verse 9 tells us “Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.” I feel myself breaking. I feel myself dashing to pieces according to a will within myself. I feel the intangible truth of my body. With my first month on hormones I asked my trans friends when I should expect changes. So many of them told me the same thing. I should see results soon. I should let the body and the medicine do their works.

I should have faith.

My work lately has been full of faith. Has been full of gratitude. Has been full of prayer. I have been unchained from the shame and secrecy of wearing women’s clothes after my house has fallen asleep. I don’t need to pray for miracles when I can unscrew the caps on bottles full of them every morning and take them according to His will. Catholicism taught me to love the flesh, to see beauty in the corpse of a man who gave everything for us. Whether you believe in it or not, there’s power in a story of that much sacrifice. I know trans people who sacrifice themselves, who give their all to be saviors and safety for those that need them.

And, like the Saints, we’re not all that popular for our devotion in our time. Our pursuit of our holiest selves, our truest and purest selves, gets us a lot of attention and a lot of distance from those that don’t understand. Radical members of the faith have suffered the same faith. Ascetics, mystics, monks, nuns. We retreat into our little ministries online and in person, we change our bodies. We accept the judgment that comes with it. As Aphrahat says in The Sixth Demonstration of Patrologia Syriaca, “Whosoever adopts the likeness of angels, let him be a stranger to humans.”

I know women who howl like dogs at the moon and feel more joy in the howling than I ever have in my life. I know women who cover themselves in tattoos to feel closer to God. I know women who worked with surgeons to scar their bodies into their best selves. These are holy women. These are angels. They are strangers to humans. They are no strangers to God.

Yours with an open mouth,

-B

[ehj3]

THRICE VICED

No one ever reached the worst of a vice at one leap. —poet Juvenal Rising above a storm-tossed sea of hands and symbolic ephemerals are three columns, one each of the three Greek orders. On the Doric, the oldest and simplest design, a siren performs. On a Corinthian, as you would suspect as it’s the gaudiest of the orders, you know who orates. Atop the Ionic, the middle order favored by…

[alieneye]

Outsainting the stylites with style

this pillar shit easy

[cherriegyuu]

today's award show just further proves my point that jihoon need a hair cut

[thoughts-from-atop-a-pillar]

"I, Simeon of the pillar, by surname Stylites, among men; I, Simeon, The watcher on the column till the end; I, Simeon, whose brain the sunshine bakes; I, whose bald brows in silent hours become Unnaturally hoar with rime, do now From my high nest of penance here proclaim That Pontius and Iscariot by my side Show'd like fair seraphs."

[dellafloosh]

It certainly is