04 — The Koinonia Organized
The Koinonia as an institution: the federal structures that bound many monasteries into one body, and the women’s community that extended the common life to nuns. A general steward at Phbow administered the shared economy of the whole federation; twice a year all the brothers gathered at the center — at Pascha and in the month of Mesore — for common worship, accounting, and the reconciliation of all. This federal architecture, with its central authority, its assemblies, and its pooled economy, is what makes Pachomius the founder of the first monastic “order.”
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Desert Father; father of cenobitic monasticism)
This section treats the supra-local organization that distinguishes the Pachomian Koinonia from a mere collection of independent houses. The first file describes the federation as an institution — the general steward, the twice-yearly assemblies, the shared treasury and economy. The second treats the parallel community of women associated with Pachomius’s sister Maria, governed under the same rule across the river — the extension of the cenobitic ideal to nuns and one of the earliest organized women’s monasteries in Christian history.
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| The Federation of Monasteries | The first monastic “order”: the head of the Koinonia and the general (great) steward at Phbow; the two annual gatherings of all the houses (Pascha and the August assembly in Mesore) for worship, the rendering of accounts, and reconciliation; the pooled economy and the coordination of labor and trade among the houses. |
| Women and the Pachomian Houses | The women’s monastery associated with Pachomius’s sister Maria, set across the Nile from the men’s community and governed under the Pachomian rule by an elder appointed for the purpose; the parallel community as one of the earliest organized monasteries for women, and what the sources do and do not tell us of it. |
See Also
- The Growth of the Federation — how the federation came to be
- The First Cenobitic Rule — the steward and the house within the single monastery
- The Death and the Succession — the government of the federation after Pachomius
- Monasticism — the broader monastic context
References
- Veilleux, Armand, trans. Pachomian Koinonia, Vols. 1–2. Cistercian Studies 45–46. Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1980–1981.
- Rousseau, Philip. Pachomius: The Making of a Community in Fourth-Century Egypt. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985; rev. ed. 1999.
- Chitty, Derwas J. The Desert a City. Oxford: Blackwell, 1966.