Saint Simeon was born within the borders of Antioch in Syria in the middle of the IV century from poor parents. In his youth, he tended his father's sheep. One day, when he came to the temple, he heard the singing of the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12), and a thirst for a righteous life arose in him. Simeon began to pray fervently to God and ask him to show him how to achieve true righteousness. Soon he dreamed that he was digging the ground as if for the foundation of a building. The voice told him: "Dig deeper." Simeon began to dig harder. Considering the hole he had dug to be deep enough, he stopped, but the same voice commanded him to dig even deeper. The same command was repeated several times. 
Then Simeon began to dig nonstop until a mysterious voice stopped him with the words: "That's enough! And now if you want to build, build, working diligently, because you will not succeed in anything without work." Having decided to become a monk, Saint Simeon left his parents' house and became a monk in a neighboring monastery. Here he spent some time in monastic feats of prayer, fasting and obedience, and then for even greater feats he retired to the Syrian desert. Here Saint Simeon laid the foundation for a new kind of asceticism: "stolpnichestvo". Having built a pillar several meters high, he settled on it and thus deprived himself of the opportunity to lie down and rest. Standing day and night like a candle in an upright position, he prayed almost continuously and reflected on God. In addition to the strictest abstinence in food, he voluntarily endured many hardships: rain, heat and cold. He ate soaked wheat and water, which were brought to him by kind people.
His extraordinary feat became known in many countries, and many visitors from Arabia, Persia, Armenia, Georgia, Italy, Spain and Britain began to flock to him. Seeing his extraordinary strength of spirit and listening to his inspired instructions, many pagans became convinced of the truth of the Christian faith and were baptized.
Saint Simeon was granted the gift to heal mental and bodily illnesses and foresaw the future. Emperor Theodosius II the Younger (408-450) greatly respected St. Simeon and often followed his advice. When the emperor died, his widow, Tsarina Evdokia, was seduced into the Monophysite heresy. The Monophysites did not recognize in Christ two natures – Divine and human, but only one Divine. The Monk Simeon brought the tsarina to reason, and she again became an Orthodox Christian. The new emperor Marcian (450-457), dressed as a commoner, secretly visited the monk and consulted with him. On the advice of St. Simeon, Marcian convened the Fourth Ecumenical Council in Chalcedon in 451, which condemned Monophysite false teaching.
Saint Simeon lived for more than a hundred years and died during prayer in 459. His relics rested in Antioch. In the divine service dedicated to Saint Simeon, the Orthodox Church calls him "a heavenly man, an earthly Angel and a lamp of the universe."