May 9: Saint Pachomius, Abbot

The father of cenobitic monasticism 

Founder of cenobitic monasticism and the first to have written a rule for religious  community life, Pachomius was born to a pagan family around the year 292 A.D., in the Thebaid region of Upper Egypt. At age twenty, he was enlisted against his will in the imperial armies of the Emperor Constantine to fight the Persian incursions. Locked in the  barracks in Thebes with other soldiers and left without food, he was fed by the local Christians. Struck by their charity, Pachomius prayed to the God of the Christians, promising that if he were freed from this bondage  he would dedicate his life to the service of his brothers. In fact, as soon as he was free, he converted and was baptized.

He entrusted himself to the spiritual guidance of the hermit Palamon (or Palamos), who taught him the principles of the Gospel and introduced him to asceticism. Pachomius had a profound transformation and dedicated himself to serving the poor and the sick. However, he felt called to live as an anchorite, that is, in complete solitude for the search of God.

Tradition has it that one day while he was in the desert close to Tabennesi, he heard a voice inviting him to establish a monastery. Around 318-320, he founded the first monastery together with three companions. Soon, other people asked to be admitted to the community. Pachomius thus wrote a Rule for those who wanted to live in community and not as hermits. The foundations of new monasteries followed one after another. Each monastery was led by an abbot, where the monks lived in their cells and gathered together for prayer, work and meals.

Very soon the monastery of Tabennisi became too small to accommodate a hundred monks, so Pachomius founded a second one in Pbow, where he resided for a long time from 336. From Upper Egypt, monasteries spread to other territories such as Syria, North Africa and Western Europe. It is written that he was probably struck by the plague and sensing that he had arrived at the end of his life, he gathered his monks, confirmed them in the faith and appointed his successor. He died on May 9, 348, in the monastery of Pbow and is remembered in the liturgy of the Catholic Church on May 9 and in the Orthodox Church, on the 15th.