Venerable Pachomius the Great, Founder of Cœnobitic Monasticism

Pachomius was born to pagan parents near Esna in Upper Egypt in the last years of the third century. Conscripted into the army at twenty, he was held with other recruits in a prison overnight, and local Christians came with bread and food for strangers they did not know. Moved by their kindness, he was baptized once released, and became a disciple of the hermit Palamon.

At Tabennisi on the Nile he gathered monks into a community living under one roof and one rule, with shared work, meals and prayer. This was the beginning of the common-life monasticism that spread from Egypt throughout the Christian world. His sister Mary, at his invitation, led a community of women nearby. By his death, c. 348, he was the head of a whole network of monasteries along the Nile.