Saint Symeon the New Theologian
Abbot of Saint Mamas, 'the New Theologian'
- Feast day
- March 12
- Lived
- 949–1022
- Patronage
- Those seeking direct experience of God in prayer
Saint Symeon insisted, against the theological establishment of his day, that the conscious experience of the Holy Spirit is not the privilege of the ancients but the normal inheritance of every Christian.
Life
Born in Paphlagonia to a noble family and educated for the imperial service, Symeon came under the direction of the monk Symeon the Studite and, while still a layman, experienced a vision of divine light that reoriented his entire life. He became abbot of the monastery of Saint Mamas in Constantinople.
His insistence that a spiritual father must be a man of genuine experience, and his frank descriptions of his own visions, provoked opposition from the ecclesiastical bureaucracy; he was eventually exiled across the Bosphorus, where he founded a small community and continued writing.
Writings
The Hymns of Divine Love and the Catechetical Discourses are unlike anything else in Byzantine literature in their directness. His theology of light prepared the ground for the hesychast synthesis of Saint Gregory Palamas three centuries later, and he is one of only three saints the Church titles 'Theologian'.