St Daniel the Stylite

Daniel is the best-known pillar-saint after St Simeon the Elder. Dedicated to God from before birth, formed in ordinary monastic life, and blessed personally by St Simeon, Daniel eventually made his way to Constantinople, where the severe life of a stylite became his strange vocation. This life is careful not to leave him as a mere curiosity.

Daniel becomes adviser to patriarchs and emperors, defender of orthodoxy in the troubled reigns of Basiliscus and Zeno, consoler of the afflicted, and preacher of direct, practical religion to ordinary people who came to the foot of his pillar. He lived for decades in that austere station and died in 493, leaving behind not merely a spectacle but a reputation for charity, sound judgment, and fidelity.