Saint Pakhom (
Coptic: Ⲁⲃⲃⲁ Ⲡⲁϧⲱⲙ; ca. 292-348), also known as
Pachome and
Pakhomius, is generally recognized as the founder of
Christian cenobitic monasticism. His saint day is celebrated on 9 May.
Biography
He was born in 292 in
Thebes (
Luxor,
Egypt) to pagan parents. According to his
hagiography, he was swept up against his will in a Roman army recruitment drive at the age of 20, 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 baptized (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).
After studying seven years with the Elder Palamon, Pachomius set out to lead the life of a
hermit near
St. Anthony of Egypt, whose practices he imitated until, according to legend, he heard a voice in Tabennisi that told him to build a dwelling for the hermits to come to. An earlier ascetic named
Macarius 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 Anthony's 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 found nine monasteries in his lifetime, 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 346, 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 nor 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 on
14 Pashons, 64 A.M. (9 May 348 A.D.)
His reputation as a holy man has endured. He is currently commemorated in several liturgical calendars, including that of the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
Coptic literature
Examples of purely
Coptic literature are the works of Abba Antonius and Abba Pachomius, who spoke only Coptic, and the sermons and preachings of
Abba Shenouda, who chose to write only in Coptic. Abba Shenouda was a popular leader who only spoke to the Copts in Coptic, the language of the repressed, not in Greek, the language of the repressive ruler.
The Pachomian system tended to treat religious literature as mere written instructions.
The earliest original writings in
Coptic language were the letters by St. Anthony of Egypt, first of the “Desert Fathers.” During the 3rd and 4th centuries many ecclesiastics and monks wrote in Coptic, among them, St.
Pachomius, whose monastic rule (the first cenobitic rule, for solitary monks gathered in communities) survives only in Coptic. St.
Athanasius, is the first
Patriarch of Alexandria to use
Coptic, as well as Greek.
See also
