Pachomios

St. Pachomios the Great

Pachomius the Elder , or the Great (* around 292 / 298 in Latopolis , Egypt , † 346 in Pbow ) is a Christian saint. He was an Egyptian monk and founder of the first Christian monasteries . Its Coptic name Pahóm means king falcon .

Traditional days of remembrance are celebrated in the Coptic and Catholic Churches on May 9th, in the Evangelical and Orthodox Churches as well as by the Trappists , Cistercians and Benedictines on May 15th, and in the Armenian Church on April 28th.

Life

The life of Pachomios has been handed down through the Vita Pachomii , which was written around 365 and whose author is considered to be Pachomios' favorite student Theodoros (around 314–368). Pachomios was born to pagan parents around 292 in Latopolis (Snê, Upper Egypt , today Esna). 312 he was at twenty recruit in the army of the Roman Emperor Constantine . Without having to go to war, he was released from military service a short time later. It was then that he saw Christians taking care of the badly treated recruits. This is how he first came into contact with the Christian religion and its commandment to love one's neighbor . He was baptized and joined the Christian community.

Around 315 Pachomios became a disciple of the hermit Palamon , a strict Christian ascetic . Around 325 he founded with the participation Palamon in Tabennisi , an abandoned village in today Dendera near Thebes, a hermit community , which was of Christianity the nucleus of the first monastery. Already around 330, shortly after his election as Bishop of Alexandria , Athanasius (around 300–373) visited the monasteries of Pachomios. At the same time, Pachomio's sister became the first leader of a first female monastery community.

Like many early ascetics, Pachomios had the gift of vision . He “was in conversation with the angels”, heaven and hell were revealed to him in every detail. In 345 an episcopal conference accused him of disregarding the sovereignty of the local bishops at the synod of Latopolis . An assassination attempt on Pachomios during this synod (also council ) failed and he was able to flee with his companions. In the year 346 Pachomios died of an epidemic in his monastery in Pbow (today ruins at Faw Qibli). His grave remained unknown.

Koinobitism

In contrast to the anarchorism (loose associations of separately living hermits ) created by Antony the Great (around 251–356) around 305 , Pachomios founded a Koinobion , the first community monastery of Christianity, around 325 near Tabennisi (Upper Egypt) . Legend has it that this monastery was founded on the reception of the angel rule , a tablet that was presented to Pachomios by an angel of God and in which the first rules for the coexistence of monks were set out. In reality the main motivation for the founding of the monastery of Pachomios lay in the contempt he felt for the anarchistism; Pachomios saw many hermits fail who were not up to the high demands of the desert and loneliness and who perished physically and mentally. For the large crowd, the trained soldier Pachomios recognized the benefits of security and the hierarchical monitoring of the individual in the Koinobion.

In Koinobitentum a large number of monks are united to a life in spatial and ascetic community under uniform management and behind high walls. The essential characteristics are the commonality of the living space, the similarity of clothing and the subordination through discipline and obedience. The daily routine in the monastery is based on the alternation of work and worship. The military order cannot be overlooked: there is strict discipline, and Pachomios often exercises the corporal punishment himself. On the other hand, there is good care for the sick and the needy as well as training for the young. The strict asceticism of the hermits resigns in favor of a regulated community life. The monks are dressed in simple, dark robes, the scheme. It is tied with leather straps, which symbolize the monk's bond with the community through his vows. At the end of Pachomios' ministry, there were nine male and two female monasteries with over ten thousand monks and nuns. He had a lot of correspondence with the administrators of his monasteries. This monastery association was a large economic unit, a productive cooperative, the economic management of which was subordinate to an administrator called a major economist who had to submit his general accounts twice a year.

Work and effect

Pachomios' greatest achievement in the history of ideas is the writing of the first monastic rule of Christianity, called the angel rule; the first form in Coptic comes from the founding time around 325 and was later expanded again and again. Around 420 Palladios (around 364-430) published the first known written version of the angel rule in his Historia Lausiaca . It regulates the coexistence of the monks in the community, less the basic beliefs and the liturgy. The original version of the angel rule of Pachomios has not survived, a later extended version also handed down to Hieronymus (347-420). Both Antonius and Pachomios are reported to have stood up for Orthodoxy and were against the Arians and against the theology of Origen (around 185-253 / 54). Pachomios threw the works of Origen into the Nile with the comment “Every person who reads Origen goes to the lowest hell.” The new institution was conveyed to the West primarily by Johannes Cassianus (around 360-435). Without the achievements of Pachomios, the founding of Christian monasteries in the east and west of the Roman Empire of the 4th and 5th centuries would be inconceivable, for example those of Martin of Tours (316 / 17–397) or Basilius of Caesarea (330–379) .

literature

• Life of Saint Pachomius. Translated from the Greek by Hans Mertel. In: Athanasius' selected writings of St. Athanasius. Volume 2: Against the Gentiles. About the Incarnation. Life of St. Anthony (= Library of the Church Fathers. Row 1, Bd. 31, ZDB -ID 986289-4 ). Kösel, Kempten u. a. 1917, separate census.
• Karl Heussi : The origin of monasticism. Mohr, Tübingen 1936 (new print. Scientia-Verlag, Aalen 1981, ISBN 3-511-09134-9 ).
• Fidelis Ruppert OSB: Pachomian monasticism and the beginnings of monastic obedience (= Münsterschwarzacher studies 20 ). Vier-Türme-Verlag, Münsterschwarzach 1971, ISBN 3-87868-044-9 .
• Bernward Büchler: The poverty of the poor. About the original meaning of monastic poverty. Kösel, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-466-20199-3 .
• Philip Rousseau : Pachomius. The Making of a Community in Forth Century Egypt (= The Transformation of the Classical Heritage. Vol. 6). University of California Press, Berkeley CA et al. a. 1985, ISBN 0-520-05048-7 .
• Amos Schmidt:  Pachomios the elder. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 6, Bautz, Herzberg 1993, ISBN 3-88309-044-1 , Sp. 1413-1419.
• Hans Conrad Zander : When religion wasn't boring. The story of the desert fathers. Kiepenheuer and Witsch, Cologne 2001, ISBN 3-462-02982-7 .
• Christoph Joest [ i. e. Franziskus Joest ] (Ed.): About the spiritual battle. Catechesis of the monk father Pachom. (= Instructions from the fathers. Vol. 9). Beuroner Kunstverlag, Beuron 2010, ISBN 978-3-87071-210-5 (two catecheses, for the first time in German).
• Christoph Joest: The life of St. Pachom and his successor . Translated from Coptic. Beuroner Kunstverlag, Beuron 2016, ISBN 978-3-87071-331-7 .

Web links

• German translation of the Pachomiusvita
• James M. Drayton: Pachomius as Discovered in the Worlds of Fourth Century Christian Egypt , M. Ph.-Thesis, Sydney 2002 (PDF file; 690 kB)
• The rule of prayer of St. Pachomius