Symeon of Trier

[2] Simeon was born in the late 10th century in Syracuse, Sicily,[3] to a Greek father and a Calabrian mother, during the period of Arab rule of the island.

[4] After serving the brethren for some years there, Simeon gained the abbot's permission to depart to live as a hermit, settling alone in a small cave on the shore of the Red Sea.

On the orders of his abbot he then restored a ruined monastery on the peak of Mount Sinai, but upon his return he still conceived a desire to live as a hermit, so he absconded and found a spot in the desert.

When he swam ashore he had no idea whether the people in the little village he reached were Christian or not, because he was unable to communicate with them in any of the languages he spoke (namely Coptic, Syrian, Arabic, Greek and Latin).

Eventually Simeon made his way to Antioch, where he joined a group of some 700 pilgrims returning from Jerusalem, among whom was the German abbot, Eberwin, of the Abbey of Tholey.

Poppo agreed and conducted a ceremony on 29 November 1030, the feast day of St. Andrew, before all the clergy and people in which Symeon was enclosed in a cell, high in the gate tower.

Even so, Symeon persisted with his prayers and fasts, allegedly beating off demonic attacks, eating a sparse diet of bread, water and beans, and praying upright with his arms outstretched, lest in lying down he fall asleep.

At the urging of Poppo, Abbot Eberwin wrote an account of his life and early miracles in the very same year he died - as Maurice Coens has shown.