St. Symeon the New Theologian

Symeon entered the imperial service in Constantinople, but at the age of twenty-seven he abandoned the world to become a monk under the elder Symeon the Studite, whose name and discipleship he afterwards bore.

Some years into his monastic life, while at prayer in his cell, he was visited by an experience of the uncreated divine light. He saw himself filled with light, and within the light he saw Christ Himself. The experience was repeated many times throughout his life and became the central theme of his preaching: that the vision of God is not reserved for the apostles or for the great fathers, but is offered to every Christian who repents and prays.

Made abbot of the monastery of St. Mamas in Constantinople, he reformed it and shepherded it for twenty-five years. His insistence that the gifts of the Spirit are still given drew opposition from churchmen who considered it presumptuous; he was eventually exiled to a small abandoned chapel across the Bosphorus, where his disciples followed him and a new monastery grew up around him.

His Hymns of Divine Love, his Catechetical Discourses, and the Practical and Theological Chapters became the foundation of the hesychast tradition that flowered three centuries later under Gregory Palamas. He reposed in his hermitage on March 12, 1022.