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...Symeon packed up his loincloth and moved to a crevice in a rock in the desert. In a space about 20 yards in diameter, he set up shop but soon learned that when you decide to live your life as a religious sideshow, you're going to attract attention. Soon pilgrims arrived to watch him presumably just sitting on his rock. They asked him for advice and prayers and probably threw peanuts and tried to get him to do tricks.
Realizing the rock was still too awesome a place to spend his life, Symeon raised a stone pillar with a little platform on top, climbed up and sat there. He went through a couple of these pillars before he settled on one over 50 feet high where he stayed ... for 36 years.
He continued to get visitors and for a while each day, a ladder was used so people could come up and chat with him while those below waited their turn and tried to avoid getting pooped on from 50 feet up.
Five Biggest Bad-ass Popes
...Pope Stephen VI decided to right some old wrongs. A previous Pope, Formosus, had committed some technical infractions, the kinds of minor crimes a less scrupulous Pope would have let slide, especially considering the man was dead. But not Stephen.
Consumed with an unquenchable thirst for justice, he had Formosus dug up, dressed in his papal vestments, and seated on a throne, ready to face the music in a formal trial.