PACHOMIUS

PACHOMIUS, ascetic, St. (292–347). An Egyptian villager from the south of that country, Pachomius was converted to Christianity around age twenty and, moved by the example of the Desert Father Antony (qq.v.), sought the solitary reaches of the upper Nile valley. Later, in attempting to guide disciples, he was led to set up the first strictly regulated, common-life communities of monastics with property in common, obedience to a single abba (father) or amma (mother, for the women’s communities), common worship, delegation of labor, and a monastic enclosure. It was an extraordinarily successful, influential, and enduring social and religious experiment. The Pachomian pattern spread rapidly, with local modifications, throughout the Christian Church. (See Monasticism.)