“Built at the beginning of the Dark Ages in Europe, the fifth-century shrine to Saint Simeon in present-day Syria is a unique architectural monument.  It was both a reminder of the classical tradition of the past and a blueprint for the great cathedrals of the medieval world.” (Barnaby Rogerson)

The ruins of Saint Simeon stand on a hill forty minutes from Aleppo, overlooking a landscape of limestone hills dotted with the ruins of stone houses and around 1,200 village churches, now referred to as the Dead Churches of Central Syria.  It is a beautiful place, not only because of the magnificent church that can so easily be reconstructed in the mind’s eye but also because of the welcome, cool breeze that wafts through its lovely curving arches and the olive orchards it dominates.

Saint Simeon commemorates the life and faith of an exceptional man, Saint Simeon the Stylite, a holy man who was born a short way away in what is now Southern Turkey, who sought the face of god in solitude and prayer.  To distance himself from the world, he lived atop a column on a small platform for 36 years until his death in A.D.459.  Pilgrims thronged to him, some eminent like Emperor Theodosius, and when he was buried a great church was built around the column.  But it was not just ONE church…four churches were constructed in the shape of a cross, their apses meeting together “in an architectural kiss” at the center, forming an octagonal hall.  And thus was constructed, in the space of only 14 years, the blueprint for all future cathedrals of the medieval period.

The majesty of the building is evident but the delicacy of it, the airiness of it, comes from the intricately carved stone arches and pediments, the capitals, the cross friezes, the scrolls of leaves which glow orange at dusk.

And if timed right, you can be alone with the singing birds, the lizard scuttling through the dried grass, the whispering wind to drink it all in and meditate upon it.