Pachomius the Great
Pachomius the elder, or the Great (c. 292/298 in Esna, Egypt; † 346 in pbow ) is a Christian saint. He was Egyptian monk and founder of the first Christian monasteries. Its Coptic name Pahom means King hawk.
Traditional days of remembrance to him be committed in the Coptic and Catholic Church on May 9, in the Protestant and Orthodox Churches as well as the Trappists, Cistercians and Benedictines on May 15, in the Armenian Church already on 28 April.
Life
The Life of Pachomius is passed down through the resulting 365 Vita Pachomii, as the authors of Pachomius ' favorite student applies Theodoros (around 314-368 ). Pachomius was born to pagan parents around 292 in Esna (SNE, Upper Egypt, Esna today ). 312 he was the age of twenty recruits in the army of the Roman Emperor Constantine. Without going to war must, he was released a short time later from military service. At that time, he experienced how Christians took care of the worst treated recruits. He was first introduced to the Christian religion and its commandment of charity in contact. He was baptized and joined the Christian church at.
To Pachomius was 315 students of the hermit Palamon, a strict Christian ascetics. To 325 he founded with the participation of Palamon in Tabennisi, an abandoned village in today's Dandara near Thebes, a hermit community, which became the nucleus of the first monastery of Christianity. Already in 330, shortly after his election as Bishop of Alexandria, Athanasius visited (around 300-373 ), the monasteries of Pachomius. Pachomius sister was at the same time, the first leader of a first female monastic community. Pachomius had, like many early ascetics, the gift of vision. He " stood with the angels talking ," heaven and hell were revealed to him in all its details. In the year 345, a Bishops' Conference indicted him for violating the sovereignty of the local bishops at the Synod of Latopolis. An assassination attempt on Pachomius during this synod (also Council ) failed, he escaped with his companions. In the year 346 Pachomius died by a plague in his monastery in pbow (now ruins at Faw Qibli ). His grave remained unknown.
The Koinobitentum
In contrast to the already 305 of Anthony the Great (c. 251-356 ) created Anachoretentum (loose groupings of living separately and hermits ), founded by Pachomius at 325 Tabennisi ( Upper Egypt ) a Koinobion, the first Community monastery of Christianity. This monastery was founded in the legend is attributed to the receipt of the angels rule, a panel that Pachomius was presented by an angel of God, and in the first rules for the coexistence of monks were outlined. In reality, the main motivation was for the founding of a monastery of Pachomius in the contempt he felt for the Anachoretentum; Pachomius saw fail many hermits who were unable to meet the high demands of the desert and the solitude and the physically and mentally perished. For the large amount of the trained soldier Pachomius realized the benefits of security and the hierarchical monitoring of individuals in Koinobion.
In Koinobitentum a greater number of monks are united to a life of spatial and ascetic community under a single management and behind high walls. The essential features are the commonality of the habitat, the similarity of the clothing, and the subordination by breed and obedience. The daily routine in the monastery is based on the alternation of work and worship. The military order is not to be overlooked: there is strict discipline, Pachomius practicing corporal punishment itself is often made . In contrast, there is a good supply of the sick and needy, as well as an education for the boys. The strict asceticism of hermit resigns in favor of a regulated community life. The monks are dressed in a simple dark robe that scheme. It is tied together with leather straps, which are considered a symbol of the bond of the monk to the community through his vows. At the end of Pachomius ' work, there were nine men and two women's monasteries with over ten thousand monks and nuns. He was in frequent correspondence with the trustees of its monasteries. This monastery Association was a great economic unit, a productive association whose economic management a major economist said administrator was under, who had to submit twice a year, his day of reckoning.
Work and impact
As the largest intellectual history performance of Pachomius applies called the writing of the first monastic rule of Christianity, angels rule; the first form in Coptic dates from the founding period to 325 and was later extended again and again. In order published 420 Palladio (around 364-430 ), the first known written version of the angels rule in his Historia Lausiaca. It regulates the coexistence of the monks in the community, less the foundations of faith and liturgy. The angels Rule of Pachomius is not received in the original version, a later expanded version of traditional and Jerome ( 347-420 ). Both of Anthony and Pachomius of it is reported that they used for the orthodoxy and were set against the Arians and against the theology of Origen (c. 185-253/54 ). The works of Origen Pachomius threw into the Nile with the comment " Every person who reads the Origen, moves to the lowest hell. " To the west, the new institution especially by John Cassian (c. 360-435 ) was mediated. Without the services of Pachomius the Christian monastic foundations in the east and west of the Roman Empire of the 4th and 5th century are not conceivable, for example, that of Martin of Tours ( 316/17-397 ) or Basil of Caesarea ( 330-379 ).