Saint Pachomius

Coptic icon of St Pachomius

Saint Pachomius (ca. 292-348), also known as Abba Pachomius and Pakhom, is generally recognized as the founder of cenobitic monasticism. His saint day is celebrated on 9 May. He was born in 292 in Thebes (Luxor, Egypt) to pagan parents. According to his hagiography, he was swept up in a Roman army recruitment drive at the age of 20 against his will, a common occurrence during the turmoils and civil wars of the period, and held in captivity. It was here that local Christians would daily bring food and comforts to the inmates, which made a lasting impression on him, and he vowed to investigate Christianity further when he got out. As fate would have it, he was able to get out of the army without ever having to fight, was converted and baptised (314). He then came into contact with a number of well known ascetics and decided to pursue that path. He sought out the hermit Palaemon and came to be his follower (317).

Pachomius set out to lead the life of a hermit near St. Anthony of Egypt, whose practices he imitated. An earlier ascetic named Marcarius had earlier created a number of proto-monasteries called "larves", or cells, where holy men would live in a community setting who were physically or mentally unable to achieve the rigors of Anthonys solitary life. Pachomius set about organizing these cells into a formal organization.

Up to this point in time, Christian asceticism had been solitary or eremitic. Male or female monastics lived in individual huts or caves and met only for occasional worship services. Pachomius seems to have created the community or cenobitic organization, in which male or female monastics lived together and had their possessions in common under the leadership of an abbot or abbess. Pachomius himself was hailed as "Abba" (father) which is where we get the word Abbot from. This first cenobitic monastery was in Tabennisi, Egypt.

He established his first monastery between 318 and 323. The first to join him was his elder brother John, and soon more than 100 monks lived at his monastery. He came to build six or seven more monasteries and a nunnery, and after 336, Pachomius spent most of his time at his Pabau monastery. From his initial monastery, demand quickly grew and, by the time of his death in 345, one count estimates there were 3000 monasteries dotting Egypt from north to south. Within a generation after his death, this number grew to 7000 and then moved out of Egypt into Palestine and the Judea Desert, Syria, North Africa and eventually Western Europe.

He is also credited with being the first Christian to use and recommend use of a prayer rope. He was visited once by Basil of Caesarea who took many of his ideas and implemented them in Caesarea, where Basil also made some adaptations that became the ascetic rule, or Ascetica, the rule still used today by the Eastern Orthodox Church, and comparable to that of the Rule of St. Benedict in the West.

Though Pachomius sometimes acted as lector for nearby shepherds, neither he or any of his monks became priests. St Athanasius visited and wished to ordain him in 333, but Pachomius fled from him. Athanasius' visit was probably a result of Pachomius' zealous defence of orthodoxy against Arianism.

He remained abbot to the cenobites for some forty years. When he caught an epidemic disease (probably plague), he called the monks, strengthened their faith, and appointed his successor. He then departed in peace on 15 May 348.

See also

• St. Benedict
• Desert Fathers

Bibliography

• Brock, S. P. "Early Syrian Asceticism." Numen Vol. XX, 1973. 1-19.
• Goehring, James E. "Withdrawing from the Desert: Pachomius and the Development of Village Monasticism in Upper Egypt." Harvard Theological Review Vol. 89:3, 1996. 267-85.
• Pachomius. Pachomian Koinonia (Vol. 3). Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1982.
• Palladius. Lausiac History. Internet Medieval Sourcebook. 2000.

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/palladius-lausiac.html.

External Links

• The Rule Of Pachomius: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, & Part 4
• Coptic Orthodox Synaxarium (Book of Saints)
• http://www2.evansville.edu/ecoleweb/glossary/pachomius.html
• http://www.earlychurch.org.uk/pachomius.html
• St. Pachomius (Catholic Encyclopedia)
• http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/saintp38.htm

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