Symeon the New Theologian (949–1022)
Born 949 CE, died 1022 CE.
Saint Symeon the New Theologian (Greek: Συμεὼν ὁ Νέος Θεολόγος; c. 949 – 12 March 1022) was an Eastern Orthodox monk and poet who was one of the three saints canonized by the Eastern Orthodox Church and given the title of "Theologian" (along with John the Apostle and Gregory of Nazianzus). "Theologian" was not applied to Symeon in the modern academic sense of theological study; the title was intended only to recognise someone who spoke from personal experience of the vision of God. One of his principal teachings was that humans could and should experience theoria (literally "contemplation," or direct experience of God). Symeon was born into the Byzantine nobility and given a traditional education. At age fourteen, he met Symeon the Studite, a renowned monk of the Monastery of Stoudios in Constantinople, who convinced him to give his own life to prayer and asceticism under the elder Symeon's guidance. By the time he was thirty, Symeon the New Theologian became the abbot of the Monastery of Saint Mamas, a position he held for twenty-five years.
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