SIMON of TREVRI, St. — A native of Syracuse, SIMON, after various wanderings, became a monk on Mount Sinai and settled in France after escaping many dangers.
At first he stayed in Aquitaine, then in Normandy, where he arrived the year after the death of his protector Duke Richard (1027). He therefore went to Verdun to meet Abbot Richard, whom he had known in Jerusalem; then to Trevri, where he lived as a hermit. Archbishop Poppone gave him the blessing of a recluse and allowed him to retire to a tower near the famous “Porta Nigra”; but being taken for a sorcerer, he ran the risk of being stoned by the people. He died on 19 June 1035. He was perhaps canonized at Christmas 1035. Feast: 19 June.
Bibl.: E. Sackur, Richard, abt von S. Vannes, Parij 1886, pp. 93-98; H. Dauphin, Le bienheureux Richard, abbe de S. Vannes de Verdun, Parij 1946 (v. indici); Martyr. Romanum, pp. 219-20; M. Coens, Un document inédit sur le culte de St Symeon, moine d'Orient et reclus à Trèves, in Anal. Boll., 68 (1950), pp. 181-06. Enrico Tribout de Morembert