Venerable Daniel the Stylite (+489–490)
The Venerable Daniel the Stylite was born in Mesopotamia, in the village of Bethara near the city of Samosata. His mother Martha was for a long time not granted a child, and fervently besought the Lord, vowing that if her request were granted she would dedicate the child to God. The pious woman’s prayer was heard: she bore a son, who was given no name until the age of five, for the boy’s parents wished that he who had been born by the Lord’s blessing should also receive his name from the Lord. They brought their son to a nearby monastery and turned to the hegumen. The hegumen ordered one of the service books to be handed to him, opened it, and read the words of the Prophet Daniel (commemorated 17 December). So the future saint was named. His father and mother wished to leave the child in the monastery, but the hegumen refused to accept the boy. When Daniel turned twelve, he himself left his parental home and went to the monastery. When the saint’s parents learned where their son was, they were overjoyed. They found their son still in lay clothes and asked the hegumen to clothe him in the angelic schema. The superior granted their request on a Sunday, but forbade the parents to visit their son often. The brotherhood of the monastery marvelled at the young monk’s wonderful zeal and fervent labours.
Some years later the hegumen sent Daniel to Antioch on monastery business. This greatly gladdened the saint, because it gave him the chance to visit Symeon the Stylite (commemorated 1 September). Saint Symeon blessed the Lord’s chosen one and said to him prophetically: “Be of good courage, my son, and be strong. Thou wilt have to endure great labours for Christ, but Christ Himself will help thee in all things, will strengthen thee and comfort thy soul.”
After this Daniel returned to the monastery. Some time later the hegumen of the monastery died, and the brotherhood chose the blessed Daniel in his place; but the saint, who sought solitude, would not hear of this proposal. He pointed the fathers to another, worthy ascetic, and himself decided to go on pilgrimage to the holy places of Jerusalem. In a miraculous vision an old man stood before the Venerable Daniel and advised him to go to Byzantium. The saint obeyed God’s will and settled in an abandoned pagan temple near Constantinople.
Many people began to come to the blessed father to ask for his prayers, blessing and counsel.
Nine years later Saint Daniel saw in a divine vision a pillar rising above the clouds, on which stood the Venerable Symeon, who had by then departed this world. He called the Venerable Daniel to him.
The blessed Daniel took this vision as a call from the Lord; he went to the Thracian desert and took on the labour of a stylite. Through the Venerable Daniel’s prayer people were healed of illnesses of soul and body, and barren mothers were given children. The Emperors Leo I (457–474) and Zeno (475–491) often visited the Venerable Daniel. It is worth noting that the Lord’s chosen one foresaw a great fire that broke out in Constantinople and the victory of the Greeks over the Vandals. The Venerable Daniel also sensed beforehand the approach of his own end and told his disciples of it. The most chosen of them were counted worthy to see how, three days before his repose, prophets and apostles came to their teacher. The venerable father received the life-giving Body and Blood of Christ and committed his soul to the Lord in peace. At that moment three cross-shaped stars shone forth in the sky, clearly visible even in daylight. They shone over the blessed Daniel’s pillar until the venerable father had been committed to the earth at the foot of that same pillar. This happened in 489–490, thirty-three years after the blessed one had gone up on the pillar.
