Saint Pachomius of Tabenna

Also known as

• Pachomius the Elder

Memorial

• 14 May (in the west)
• 15 May (in the east)
• 9 May (Coptic church)

Profile

Soldier in the imperial Roman army. Convert in 313. He left the army in 314 and became a spiritual student of Saint Palaemon. Lived as a hermit from 316. During a retreat into the deep desert, he received a vision telling him to build a monastery on the spot and leave the life of a hermit for that of a monk in community. He did in 320, and devised a Rule that let fellow hermits ease from solitary to communal living; legend says that the Rule was dictated to him by an angel. Abbot. His first house expanded to eleven monasteries and convents with over 7,000 monks and nuns in religous life by the time of Pachomius’s death. Spiritual teacher of Saint Abraham the Poor. Considered the founder of Christian cenobitic (communal) monasticism, whose rule for monks is the earliest extant.

Born

• c.290 at Upper Thebaid, Egypt

Died

• c.346 of natural causes

Canonized

• Pre-Congregation

Additional Information

• Book of Saints, by the Monks of Ramsgate
• Catholic Encyclopedia
• Encyclopedia Britannica
• Lives of the Saints, by Father Alban Butler
• New Catholic Dictionary
• Our Sunday Visitor’s Encyclopedia of Saints
• Roman Martyrology

MLA Citation

• “Saint Pachomius of Tabenna“. Saints.SQPN.com. 14 May 2013. Web. 21 May 2013. <>