Egyptian saint
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4 episodes with pachomius
6 episodes with pachomius
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2 episodes with pachomius
Morning Prayer for Thursday, May 15, 2025 (The Fourth Sunday of Easter: Good Shepherd; Pachomius, Abbot of Tabennisi, 346).Psalm and Scripture readings (60-day Psalter):Psalms 32, 36Deuteronomy 16Luke 9:1-17Click here to access the text for the Daily Office at DailyOffice2019.com.Click here to support The Daily Office Podcast with a one-time gift or a recurring donation.
Evening Prayer for Thursday, May 15, 2025 (The Fourth Sunday of Easter: Good Shepherd; Pachomius, Abbot of Tabennisi, 346).Psalm and Scripture readings (60-day Psalter):Psalm 38Ecclesiastes 11 John 3:1-10Click here to access the text for the Daily Office at DailyOffice2019.com.Click here to support The Daily Office Podcast with a one-time gift or a recurring donation.
His name in his native Coptic, Pachom, means "eagle." He was an Egyptian pagan who entered the Roman army at a young age. While quartered at Thebes, he was amazed at the kindness of the local Christians, who brought food and drink to the soldiers. Learning who they were, he believed in Christ and vowed, once released from the army, to serve him for the rest of his life. At the end of his military service, he was baptised and became the disciple of the hermit Palamon, with whom he lived for ten years. At a place called Tabennisis an angel appeared to him dressed in the robes of a monk and gave him a tablet on which was written a rule for a cenobitic monastery — one in which the brethren live communally rather than as hermits, something that had not been seen before among Christians. The angel commanded him to found such a monastery. Pachomius set to work, building many cells though there was no one to live there but himself and his brother John. When John questioned the unnecessary building, Pachomius only said that he was following God's command, without saying who would live there or when. But soon men began to assemble there, and in time so many came to be his disciples that he eventually founded nine monasteries housing thousands of monks. The rule that he gave (or had been given) for these monasteries became the model for all communal Christian monasticism thereafter. St Pachomius reposed in 346, before his great Egyptian fellow-strugglers St Anthony the Great and St Athanasius the Great. Entertaining angels unawares: Christian believers' simple acts of kindness toward their pagan oppressors may have seemed foolish to many, but it was such acts that opened the eyes of Pachomius to the light of Christ, and which bore incalculably great fruit: the founding of the monastic life which is still the backbone of Christ's Church.
Father Paul tells the story of a man devoted to the monastic way of life but was determined to live it out with others in community.
Im 3. und 4. Jahrhundert entwickelte in der Wüste Ägyptens eine der wirkmächtigsten spirituellen Bewegungen aller Zeiten. Zunächst waren es nur einzelne Männer und Frauen, die sich in die Einöde zurückzogen, doch schon bald folgten hunderte Anhänger dem Vorbild von Antonius und Pachomius „und die Wüste bevölkerte sich mit Mönchen“, wie Bischof Athanasius von Alexandria zu berichten wusste. Stärker noch als die kurzfristige war die langfristige Wirkung der sogenannten „Wüstenväter“. Fast jede größere christliche Reformbewegung erklärte, sich ihre Weisheit und ihr einfaches Leben zum Vorbild nehmen zu wollen.
Dr. Jenkins continues he discussion of the history of monasticism. This week Dr. Jenkins looks at the shift in monasticism that the introduction of Pachomius's early fourth-century reforms entailed.
St. Pachomius called St. Antony a pattern for those who pursued the life in the desert. This episode Dr. Jenkins unpacks what this means.
Saturday after Epiphany Saint of the Day: St. Palaemon; a third and fourth century Egyptian hermit who is best known for serving as mentor to St. Pachomius; Palaemon and Pachomius organized the hermits of the Egyptian desert into cenobitic communities, laying the groundwork for the development of monasticism; Palaemon died in 325 at Tabennisi, the vast monastic center that sheltered the early Desert Fathers Office of Readings and Morning Prayer for 1/11/25 Gospel: John 3:22-30
Morning Prayer for Wednesday, May 15, 2024 (Wednesday after the Sunday after the Ascension; Pachomius, Abbot of Tabennisi, 346). Psalm and Scripture readings (60-day Psalter): Psalms 32, 36 Deuteronomy 16 Luke 9:1-17 Click here to access the text for the Daily Office at DailyOffice2019.com. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dailyofficepodcast/support
Evening Prayer for Wednesday, May 15, 2024 (Wednesday after the Sunday after the Ascension; Pachomius, Abbot of Tabennisi, 346). Psalm and Scripture readings (60-day Psalter): Psalm 38 Ecclesiastes 1 1 John 3:1-10 Click here to access the text for the Daily Office at DailyOffice2019.com. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dailyofficepodcast/support
His name in his native Coptic, Pachom, means "eagle." He was an Egyptian pagan who entered the Roman army at a young age. While quartered at Thebes, he was amazed at the kindness of the local Christians, who brought food and drink to the soldiers. Learning who they were, he believed in Christ and vowed, once released from the army, to serve him for the rest of his life. At the end of his military service, he was baptised and became the disciple of the hermit Palamon, with whom he lived for ten years. At a place called Tabennisis an angel appeared to him dressed in the robes of a monk and gave him a tablet on which was written a rule for a cenobitic monastery — one in which the brethren live communally rather than as hermits, something that had not been seen before among Christians. The angel commanded him to found such a monastery. Pachomius set to work, building many cells though there was no one to live there but himself and his brother John. When John questioned the unnecessary building, Pachomius only said that he was following God's command, without saying who would live there or when. But soon men began to assemble there, and in time so many came to be his disciples that he eventually founded nine monasteries housing thousands of monks. The rule that he gave (or had been given) for these monasteries became the model for all communal Christian monasticism thereafter. St Pachomius reposed in 346, before his great Egyptian fellow-strugglers St Anthony the Great and St Athanasius the Great. Entertaining angels unawares: Christian believers' simple acts of kindness toward their pagan oppressors may have seemed foolish to many, but it was such acts that opened the eyes of Pachomius to the light of Christ, and which bore incalculably great fruit: the founding of the monastic life which is still the backbone of Christ's Church.
His name in his native Coptic, Pachom, means "eagle." He was an Egyptian pagan who entered the Roman army at a young age. While quartered at Thebes, he was amazed at the kindness of the local Christians, who brought food and drink to the soldiers. Learning who they were, he believed in Christ and vowed, once released from the army, to serve him for the rest of his life. At the end of his military service, he was baptised and became the disciple of the hermit Palamon, with whom he lived for ten years. At a place called Tabennisis an angel appeared to him dressed in the robes of a monk and gave him a tablet on which was written a rule for a cenobitic monastery — one in which the brethren live communally rather than as hermits, something that had not been seen before among Christians. The angel commanded him to found such a monastery. Pachomius set to work, building many cells though there was no one to live there but himself and his brother John. When John questioned the unnecessary building, Pachomius only said that he was following God's command, without saying who would live there or when. But soon men began to assemble there, and in time so many came to be his disciples that he eventually founded nine monasteries housing thousands of monks. The rule that he gave (or had been given) for these monasteries became the model for all communal Christian monasticism thereafter. St Pachomius reposed in 346, before his great Egyptian fellow-strugglers St Anthony the Great and St Athanasius the Great. Entertaining angels unawares: Christian believers' simple acts of kindness toward their pagan oppressors may have seemed foolish to many, but it was such acts that opened the eyes of Pachomius to the light of Christ, and which bore incalculably great fruit: the founding of the monastic life which is still the backbone of Christ's Church.
Ephesians 4:4-6. | Pachomius of Tabenissi May 2024 meditations are written and recorded by Kira Austin-Young. Forward Day by Day is published and produced by Forward Movement. Explore our other podcasts, books, and blogs at forwardmovement.org
The Community of St Gregory the Great sings the Gregorian Chant Mass for the Memoria of St Pachomius. Recorded live at Southgate House on 15 May 2024.
Today, on the Christian History Almanac, we remember one of the fathers of the monastic tradition: Pachomius and his pet crocodile. Show Notes: Support 1517 1517 Podcasts 1517 on Youtube 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 Academy - Free Theological Education What's New from 1517: Available Now: Encouragement for Motherhood Edited by Katie Koplin Pre-order: Hitchhiking with Prophets: A Ride Through the Salvation Story of the Old Testament by Chad Bird 30 Minutes in the NT on Youtube Remembering Rod Rosenbladt Available Now: Be Thou My Song by Kerri Tom More from the hosts: Dan van Voorhis SHOW TRANSCRIPTS are available: https://www.1517.org/podcasts/the-christian-history-almanac CONTACT: CHA@1517.org SUBSCRIBE: Apple Podcasts Spotify Stitcher Overcast Google Play FOLLOW US: Facebook Twitter Audio production by Christopher Gillespie (gillespie.media).
Walking with the Saints Podcast | Feast of St. Pachomius the Great, The Founder of Christian Cenobitic Life l May 9 According to the Pontifical Yearbook, the annual directory of the Catholic Church, there are now a million priests, brothers and nuns living in communities in various religious institutes. This is excluding the diocesan priests who serve in parishes. How religious life began to be lived in communities is what we shall discover in the biography of our saint today, St. Pachomius the Great. St. Pachomius was born in 292 A.D. in Thebes, now Luxor, Egypt. His parents were pagan but they gave him an excellent secular education. At twenty years old, he was conscripted in the army of Roman Emperor Constantine, where the new recruits were placed in a prison guarded by soldiers. Local Christians came to give them food and took care of their other needs. Pachomius was surprised and asked why those Christians were serving them. He learned that they were fulfilling the Commandment of God to love their neighbor. Impressed, he soon vowed to become a Christian himself. When he returned from the army, he asked to be baptized and went to a lonely place to lead an ascetic life. Then he sought the help of a desert-dweller Palaemon for spiritual guidance, and followed his instructions about monastic life. After a few years following this kind of life, he went to a desert and there he heard a voice ordering him to start a monastery. He and Palaemon believed that this voice came from God. They went to a certain spot and built a small monastic cell, but soon Palaemon died. Yet God did not abandon him. An angel came to Pachomius, disguised as a monk, and gave him a Rule of monastic life. It is this rule that both St. Benedict and St. Basil based and developed their Rules. Pachomius' brother came to join him. Gradually, other men began to follow him because of his love for prayer, love for work, his task of giving guidance and counselling and service to others, especially the sick. He introduced a cenobitic monasticism. Cenobitic life is life lived in common, with strict discipline, regular daily worship and manual work. The monks fulfilled the work assigned to them through obedience, they were not allowed to possess their own money and those who disobeyed were punished. Pachomius' sister Maria came for a visit, but observing the strict Rule, he did not see her. He only blessed her and asked her to enter monastic life, promising to help her. The monks built her a hut on the opposite side of the Nile River. Other women began to join Maria and soon a women's monastery was formed with strict monastic Rule furnished by Pachomius. Pachomius was not a priest. When he was to be ordained by St. Athanasius, he fled. But he was severe and strict upon himself, kind condescending to the other monks. He taught them monastic obedience, chastity, humility, fasting, austerity, prudence, to avoid judging others, to fulfill their assigned tasks and to treat the sick with special care. He instructed them to rely more on the mercy and help of God. The Lord granted Pachomius the gift of miracles, yet he suffered much from the wickedness of the devil. When he died in 348, there were eight monasteries and several hundred monks living cenobitic life. They spread from Egypt to Palestine, North Africa and Europe. He is remembered as the founder of Christian cenobitic life. His feast is celebrated on May 9. Virtue: piety, humility, austerity, prudence, chastity, obedience, fidelity, kindness and austerity. Prayer: St. Pachomius, we pray that all who live monastic cenobitic life may be faithful to the vows they profess.
Evangelization Challenge:Invite a friend or family member to practice praying through Lectio Divina. Let the know you are learning too and that it will be a good experience to grow in faith together. You can also do this with a ministry you are part of. Notes on Catholic Lectio Divina:The premise of lectio divina is meditating on the Word of God and immersing yourself in the mysteries of Christ through sacred Scripture. (A sound substitute for sacred Scripture is the Catechism of the Catholic Church by way of meditating on a key doctrine of the faith.)Catholic Church Catechism2708 Meditation engages thought, imagination, emotion, and desire. This mobilization of faculties is necessary in order to deepen our convictions of faith, prompt the conversion of our heart, and strengthen our will to follow Christ. Christian prayer tries above all to meditate on the mysteries of Christ, as in lectio divina or the rosary. This form of prayerful reflection is of great value, but Christian prayer should go further: to the knowledge of the love of the Lord Jesus, to union with him.Guide to Lectio DivinaEvangelization Challenge:With Lectio Divina you can learn as a family, prayer group, church group, co-workers. Children included! Pray to the Holy Spirit to show you a path to Lectio Divina in. your life. It may be challenging. Practice Lectio Divina on your own to start if you like then fine at least one person to work withA Guide to Lectio Divina “To get the full flavor of an herb, it must be pressed between the fingers. So it is the same with the Scriptures; the more familiar they become, the more they reveal their hidden treasures and yield their indescribable riches.”—St. John Chrysostom, 347-407 A.D Lectio divina, an ancient method of praying while reading the Scriptures, is today being used to bring many Catholics back to a more profound understanding of the Scriptures, the Word of God.Catholics in the past have sometimes tended to be less familiar with the Bible than, for example, evangelical Protestants, who can often cite Scripture verses with great ease because they study the Bible so closely. What can be done to help Catholics become more familiar with the Word of God? The answer lies in two Latin words: lectio divina. Lectio divina is a slow, contemplative praying of the Scriptures so that the Bible — the living Word of God — becomes a means of union with God. This ancient and powerful form of praying with Scripture was practiced by the early Christian monks and was prescribed in the monastic rules of Sts. Pachomius, Augustine, Basil and Benedict. Centrality of the BibleGod's Word is, of course, crucial to the life of the Catholic Church. In fact, the last two Popes — the late Pope John Paul II and Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI — urged Catholics to study Sacred Scripture. Now the American Bible Society, in a publishing venture together with the Vatican Press under the vibrant direction of Father Giuseppe Costa, S.D.B., is helping Catholics respond to that call.Pope Benedict solidly supported lectio divina. In a 2005 speech, he recommended this ancient method of prayer: “The diligent reading of Sacred Scripture accompanied by prayer brings about that intimate dialogue in which the person reading hears God who is speaking, and in praying, responds to him with trusting openness of heart.”“Our mission is the Word of God,” Mario Paredes, liaison to the Roman Catholic Church at the American Bible Society, said. “We join in partnership with the Catholic Church and are presenting lectio divina as our flagship program serving Catholics everywhere.”During the nearly 500 years following the launch of th
Evangelization Challenge:Invite a friend or family member to practice praying through Lectio Divina. Let the know you are learning too and that it will be a good experience to grow in faith together. You can also do this with a ministry you are part of. Notes on Catholic Lectio Divina:The premise of lectio divina is meditating on the Word of God and immersing yourself in the mysteries of Christ through sacred Scripture. (A sound substitute for sacred Scripture is the Catechism of the Catholic Church by way of meditating on a key doctrine of the faith.)Catholic Church Catechism2708 Meditation engages thought, imagination, emotion, and desire. This mobilization of faculties is necessary in order to deepen our convictions of faith, prompt the conversion of our heart, and strengthen our will to follow Christ. Christian prayer tries above all to meditate on the mysteries of Christ, as in lectio divina or the rosary. This form of prayerful reflection is of great value, but Christian prayer should go further: to the knowledge of the love of the Lord Jesus, to union with him.Guide to Lectio DivinaEvangelization Challenge:With Lectio Divina you can learn as a family, prayer group, church group, co-workers. Children included! Pray to the Holy Spirit to show you a path to Lectio Divina in. your life. It may be challenging. Practice Lectio Divina on your own to start if you like then fine at least one person to work withA Guide to Lectio Divina “To get the full flavor of an herb, it must be pressed between the fingers. So it is the same with the Scriptures; the more familiar they become, the more they reveal their hidden treasures and yield their indescribable riches.”—St. John Chrysostom, 347-407 A.D Lectio divina, an ancient method of praying while reading the Scriptures, is today being used to bring many Catholics back to a more profound understanding of the Scriptures, the Word of God.Catholics in the past have sometimes tended to be less familiar with the Bible than, for example, evangelical Protestants, who can often cite Scripture verses with great ease because they study the Bible so closely. What can be done to help Catholics become more familiar with the Word of God? The answer lies in two Latin words: lectio divina. Lectio divina is a slow, contemplative praying of the Scriptures so that the Bible — the living Word of God — becomes a means of union with God. This ancient and powerful form of praying with Scripture was practiced by the early Christian monks and was prescribed in the monastic rules of Sts. Pachomius, Augustine, Basil and Benedict. Centrality of the BibleGod's Word is, of course, crucial to the life of the Catholic Church. In fact, the last two Popes — the late Pope John Paul II and Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI — urged Catholics to study Sacred Scripture. Now the American Bible Society, in a publishing venture together with the Vatican Press under the vibrant direction of Father Giuseppe Costa, S.D.B., is helping Catholics respond to that call.Pope Benedict solidly supported lectio divina. In a 2005 speech, he recommended this ancient method of prayer: “The diligent reading of Sacred Scripture accompanied by prayer brings about that intimate dialogue in which the person reading hears God who is speaking, and in praying, responds to him with trusting openness of heart.”“Our mission is the Word of God,” Mario Paredes, liaison to the Roman Catholic Church at the American Bible Society, said. “We join in partnership with the Catholic Church and are presenting lectio divina as our flagship program serving Catholics everywhere.”During the nearly 500 years following the launch of th
Friday of the 29th Week in Ordinary Time Saint of the Day: St. Abraham the Poor; born in Menuf, Egypt; became a disciple of St. Pachomius, the founder of cenobitic monasticism; spent almost two decades in a cave near Pachomius' foundations in the Delta Office of Readings and Morning Prayer for 10/27/23 Gospel: Luke 12:54-59
This is part 16 of the Early Church History class. Jerome and Augustine are two of the most influential Latin Christians of the first millennium of Christianity. This episode will introduce you to their lives, personalities, and some of their most important ideas. You'll see how significantly asceticism affected their lifestyles as well as how their particular take on Christianity came to set the norm for Roman Catholic Christianity. Listen to this episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtNF5-rvmwU&list=PLN9jFDsS3QV2lk3B0I7Pa77hfwKJm1SRI&index=16&pp=iAQB —— Links —— More Restitutio resources on Christian history See other classes here Support Restitutio by donating here Join our Restitutio Facebook Group and follow Sean Finnegan on Twitter @RestitutioSF Leave a voice message via SpeakPipe with questions or comments and we may play them out on the air Intro music: Good Vibes by MBB Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) Free Download / Stream: Music promoted by Audio Library. Who is Sean Finnegan? Read his bio here —— Notes —— Jerome's Life (347-419) Actual name: Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus Excellent Latin education, highly intelligent Learned Greek and Hebrew Lived as a hermit in the Syrian desert 382-385 - served as secretary to Pope Damasus I, bishop of Rome Jerome's Asceticism Believed everyone should be celibate Worked a lot with wealthy widows from the senatorial class and their daughters Thought the only benefit from marriage was the production of more virgins After Paula's daughter Blaesilla died, he moved to Bethlehem. Spent his time engaging in controversies by letter, translating the Bible and other literature into Latin, and writing commentaries on scripture Jerome's Writings Though deeply influenced by classical literature, especially Cicero, he advocated reading only the Bible and Christian literature. Worked on the Vulgate (382-405) Became the dominant Latin Bible for the Roman Catholic Church from 600 onwards; though in Jerome's day, many still preferred a translation of the Septuagint (including Augustine) Translated Origen's On First Principles, Pachomius' Rule, and Eusebius' Historical Chronicle into Latin Lives of Illustrious Men provides short biographies of many early Christians. Commentaries on many books of the Bible Augustine's Early Life (354-430) Grew up in North Africa with a Christian mother, Monica, and a pagan father, Patrick Had an excellent education in Carthage Particularly influenced by Cicero's dialogues, especially his Hortensius Became a teacher of rhetoric in Rome, then Milan Augustine's Sexual Life Stealing pears as a teenager “I was burning to find satisfaction… I ran wild in the shadowy jungle of erotic adventures.” (Confessions 2.1.1)[1] At Carthage, he said, “All around me hissed a cauldron of illicit loves.” (Confessions 3.1.1) Took a concubine from a lower class and lived with her for 13 years and had a son with her, Adeodatus His mother convinced him to send his concubine away so he could be eligible to marry a well-born woman. Couldn't live chastely in the interval and took another concubine Augustine's Journey to Christianity Had encountered the scriptures but said they “seemed to me unworthy in comparison with the dignity of Cicero” (Confessions 3.5.9) Became a Manichaean for 9 years Believed in Astrology for a long while Found great satisfaction in Neo-Platonism, especially the writings of Plotinus and Porphyry Checked out Bishop Ambrose just to listen to his rhetoric and was impressed Heard a voice saying, “Pick up and read [tolle, lege]” and opened to Romans 13.13-14 387 - Ambrose baptized Augustine and Adeodatus Augustine's Bishopric (395-430) Became bishop of Hippo Regius and served for 35 years Preached regularly, held court twice a week, counselled people Engaged in many controversies with Manichaeans, Donatists, Pelagians, and pagans. Augustine's Writings Wrote approximately five million words Confessions: an autobiography City of God: responds to Alaric's sack of Rome in 410 as well as lays out extensive interpretation of the Bible and key doctrines On the Trinity: defended the Trinity and explained it philosophically Also, many letters, commentaries, and treatises Augustine's Thought Original sin passed down a corrupted nature incapable of doing good. God predestined the elect to be saved. The elect go to heaven to live eternally. The damned go to hell to be tormented eternally. Augustine's Influence Probably the most influential Christian of the first millennium Codified Catholic doctrine that held sway throughout the Middle Ages Martin Luther was himself an Augustinian monk, and the Reformation was largely a return to Augustinian Christianity. Review Jerome and Augustine were influential Christians who shaped Christianity in the fifth century. Both received excellent educations and voluntarily chose ascetic, celibate lifestyles. Both were influenced by Origen, especially his allegorical hermeneutic. Jerome's translation of the Bible into Latin from Hebrew and Greek--the Vulgate--became the official Bible of the Roman Catholic Church. Augustine had a fraught and lengthy battle with lust that eventually led him to celibacy. Augustine was a Manichean, a believer in astrology, and a Neo-Platonist before he became a Christian. Augustine battled Manicheans, Donatists, Pelagians, and Pagans throughout his career. He advocated original sin, infant baptism, eternal life in heaven, eternal torment in hell, predestination of the elect, and celibate clergy. More than anyone else in the first thousand years, Augustine's thought influenced Roman Catholic doctrine. To a degree, the Reformation itself was a return to Augustinian Christianity. [1] All quotes from Confessions from Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick (New York: Oxford, 1998).
This is part 15 of the Early Church History class. We are shifting gears away from Christology to talk about the desert fathers and mothers. These were people that decided to leave the city and go off alone or in communes to practice spiritual disciplines and asceticism. They denied themselves pleasure in their pursuit of sanctification and spiritual warfare. Today we'll go over four early founders, including Anthony, Pachomius, Basil, and Benedict. Although this subject may seem somewhat tangential to the main arc of early church history, as it turns out, these monks exercised a huge influence on Christianity at large. Listen to this episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEUeiVsNeo0&list=PLN9jFDsS3QV2lk3B0I7Pa77hfwKJm1SRI&index=15 —— Links —— More Restitutio resources on Christian history See other classes here Support Restitutio by donating here Join our Restitutio Facebook Group and follow Sean Finnegan on Twitter @RestitutioSF Leave a voice message via SpeakPipe with questions or comments and we may play them out on the air Intro music: Good Vibes by MBB Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) Free Download / Stream: Music promoted by Audio Library. Who is Sean Finnegan? Read his bio here —— Notes —— Anthony the Great (251-356) One of the earliest hermits Athanasius of Alexandria wrote the Life of Anthony, which became an extremely popular hagiography. Heard what Jesus said to the rich young ruler in Matthew 19.21 and sold his possessions to give to the poor Trained under an old hermit (a.k.a eremite or anchorite) before going off alone Practiced extreme asceticism and isolation Repeatedly tempted and beaten by demons Lived in a tomb, then an abandoned Roman fort, then on a mountain Athanasius had Anthony come to Alexandria to endorse the eternality of the Son over against the subordinationists. Pachomius (292-348) Studied 7 years under a hermit named Palaemon near Anthony in the Egyptian desert Went off on his own and lived as an anchorite Started a XXfor hermits unable physically or mentally to live alone Known as founder of cenobitic monasticism Developed a rule to govern monastery life Monasteries dotted the desert in Egypt, Judea, and Syria Basil Caesarea (329-379) Grew up wealthy and well-educated Became a Christian and donated his fortune to the poor Studied with monks in Egypt and influenced by Pachomius Returned to Caesarea and began founding monasteries Diminished the austerity of Pachomian monasteries and adapted to life in the city where monks ran orphanages, hospices, and hospitals Designed a rule for monasteries, incorporating interspersed periods of worship and manual or scholarly labor Adapted and popularized monastery life in the Greek-speaking East Died in 40s probably because of ascetic practices Benedict of Nursia (480-547) Gave up wealth and career as a nobleman Became a hermit for 3 years before a nearby monastery conscripted him to be their abbot They tried to poison him, but it didn't work. He left and started his own monastery Developed the Rule of St. Benedict, which became influential in the Latin-speaking West At the end of his rule, he mentions Basil of Caesarea and his rule. Review Although Anthony the Great was not the first hermit, he became the father of all monks. Anthony practiced extreme isolation and asceticism while battling demons in the African desert. Many found Anthony's lifestyle attractive and sought him out, no matter how far away he settled. Nearby villages and cities saw the desert fathers and mothers' battles with spirits as a benefit to society. Pachomius wrote a rule of community life and started several monasteries, becoming the founder of cenobitic monasticism. Basil of Caesarea learned from Pachomius' monasticism and brought it to Cappadocia. Basil wrote a less austere rule (than Pachomius') and pioneered having monasteries in populated areas that ran orphanages, hospices, and hostels. Benedict of Nursia learned from Basil's rule and developed his own. Basil's rule held sway in the Greek-speaking East and Benedict's rule dominated the Latin-speaking West. Benedict's communities emphasized renunciation, humility, and obedience as well as eight services per day, working through all 150 psalms each week.
Evening Prayer for Monday, May 15, 2023 (Rogation Day [Monday]; Monday after the Sixth Sunday of Easter: Rogation; Pachomius, Abbot of Tabennisi, 346). Psalm and Scripture readings (60-day Psalter): Psalm 38 Ecclesiastes 1 1 John 3:1-10 Click here to access the text for the Daily Office at DailyOffice2019.com. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dailyofficepodcast/support
Morning Prayer for Monday, May 15, 2023 (Rogation Day [Monday]; Monday after the Sixth Sunday of Easter: Rogation; Pachomius, Abbot of Tabennisi, 346). Psalm and Scripture readings (60-day Psalter): Psalms 32, 36 Deuteronomy 16 Luke 9:1-17 Click here to access the text for Morning Prayer at DailyOffice2019.com. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dailyofficepodcast/support
His name in his native Coptic, Pachom, means "eagle." He was an Egyptian pagan who entered the Roman army at a young age. While quartered at Thebes, he was amazed at the kindness of the local Christians, who brought food and drink to the soldiers. Learning who they were, he believed in Christ and vowed, once released from the army, to serve him for the rest of his life. At the end of his military service, he was baptised and became the disciple of the hermit Palamon, with whom he lived for ten years. At a place called Tabennisis an angel appeared to him dressed in the robes of a monk and gave him a tablet on which was written a rule for a cenobitic monastery — one in which the brethren live communally rather than as hermits, something that had not been seen before among Christians. The angel commanded him to found such a monastery. Pachomius set to work, building many cells though there was no one to live there but himself and his brother John. When John questioned the unnecessary building, Pachomius only said that he was following God's command, without saying who would live there or when. But soon men began to assemble there, and in time so many came to be his disciples that he eventually founded nine monasteries housing thousands of monks. The rule that he gave (or had been given) for these monasteries became the model for all communal Christian monasticism thereafter. St Pachomius reposed in 346, before his great Egyptian fellow-strugglers St Anthony the Great and St Athanasius the Great. Entertaining angels unawares: Christian believers' simple acts of kindness toward their pagan oppressors may have seemed foolish to many, but it was such acts that opened the eyes of Pachomius to the light of Christ, and which bore incalculably great fruit: the founding of the monastic life which is still the backbone of Christ's Church.
Psalm 77:11-12. | Pachomius of Tabenissi/Rogation Day May 2023 meditations are written by Perry M. Pauly and recorded by Jason Merritt. Forward Day by Day is published and produced by Forward Movement. Explore our other podcasts, books, and blogs at forwardmovement.org
His name in his native Coptic, Pachom, means "eagle." He was an Egyptian pagan who entered the Roman army at a young age. While quartered at Thebes, he was amazed at the kindness of the local Christians, who brought food and drink to the soldiers. Learning who they were, he believed in Christ and vowed, once released from the army, to serve him for the rest of his life. At the end of his military service, he was baptised and became the disciple of the hermit Palamon, with whom he lived for ten years. At a place called Tabennisis an angel appeared to him dressed in the robes of a monk and gave him a tablet on which was written a rule for a cenobitic monastery — one in which the brethren live communally rather than as hermits, something that had not been seen before among Christians. The angel commanded him to found such a monastery. Pachomius set to work, building many cells though there was no one to live there but himself and his brother John. When John questioned the unnecessary building, Pachomius only said that he was following God's command, without saying who would live there or when. But soon men began to assemble there, and in time so many came to be his disciples that he eventually founded nine monasteries housing thousands of monks. The rule that he gave (or had been given) for these monasteries became the model for all communal Christian monasticism thereafter. St Pachomius reposed in 346, before his great Egyptian fellow-strugglers St Anthony the Great and St Athanasius the Great. Entertaining angels unawares: Christian believers' simple acts of kindness toward their pagan oppressors may have seemed foolish to many, but it was such acts that opened the eyes of Pachomius to the light of Christ, and which bore incalculably great fruit: the founding of the monastic life which is still the backbone of Christ's Church.
The Community of St Gregory the Great sing the Gregorian Chant Mass for the Memoria of St Pachomius. Recorded live at Southgate House on 15 May 2023.
Tuesday of the Fifth Week of Easter Saint of the Day: St. Pachomius, 292-348; after his discharge from the emperor's army, he was baptized, and joined an anchorite, Palemon; the two build a monastery on the banks of the Nile, and in a short time some one hundred monks joined them; ten other monasteries were built for men, and two nunneries for women; before Pachomius' death, there were seven thousand monks in his houses; his order lasted in the East until the 11th Century Office of Readings and Morning Prayer for 5/9/23 Gospel: John 14:27-31
Walking with the Saints Podcast | Feast of St. Pachomius the Great, The Founder of Christian Cenobitic Life l May 9 According to the Pontifical Yearbook, the annual directory of the Catholic Church, there are now a million priests, brothers and nuns living in communities in various religious institutes. This is excluding the diocesan priests who serve in parishes. How religious life began to be lived in communities is what we shall discover in the biography of our saint today, St. Pachomius the Great. St. Pachomius was born in 292 A.D. in Thebes, now Luxor, Egypt. His parents were pagan but they gave him an excellent secular education. At twenty years old, he was conscripted in the army of Roman Emperor Constantine, where the new recruits were placed in a prison guarded by soldiers. Local Christians came to give them food and took care of their other needs. Pachomius was surprised and asked why those Christians were serving them. He learned that they were fulfilling the Commandment of God to love their neighbor. Impressed, he soon vowed to become a Christian himself. When he returned from the army, he asked to be baptized and went to a lonely place to lead an ascetic life. Then he sought the help of a desert-dweller Palaemon for spiritual guidance, and followed his instructions about monastic life. After a few years following this kind of life, he went to a desert and there he heard a voice ordering him to start a monastery. He and Palaemon believed that this voice came from God. They went to a certain spot and built a small monastic cell, but soon Palaemon died. Yet God did not abandon him. An angel came to Pachomius, disguised as a monk, and gave him a Rule of monastic life. It is this rule that both St. Benedict and St. Basil based and developed their Rules. Pachomius' brother came to join him. Gradually, other men began to follow him because of his love for prayer, love for work, his task of giving guidance and counselling and service to others, especially the sick. He introduced a cenobitic monasticism. Cenobitic life is life lived in common, with strict discipline, regular daily worship and manual work. The monks fulfilled the work assigned to them through obedience, they were not allowed to possess their own money and those who disobeyed were punished. Pachomius' sister Maria came for a visit, but observing the strict Rule, he did not see her. He only blessed her and asked her to enter monastic life, promising to help her. The monks built her a hut on the opposite side of the Nile River. Other women began to join Maria and soon a women's monastery was formed with strict monastic Rule furnished by Pachomius. Pachomius was not a priest. When he was to be ordained by St. Athanasius, he fled. But he was severe and strict upon himself, kind condescending to the other monks. He taught them monastic obedience, chastity, humility, fasting, austerity, prudence, to avoid judging others, to fulfill their assigned tasks and to treat the sick with special care. He instructed them to rely more on the mercy and help of God. The Lord granted Pachomius the gift of miracles, yet he suffered much from the wickedness of the devil. When he died in 348, there were eight monasteries and several hundred monks living cenobitic life. They spread from Egypt to Palestine, North Africa and Europe. He is remembered as the founder of Christian cenobitic life. His feast is celebrated on May 9. Virtue: piety, humility, austerity, prudence, chastity, obedience, fidelity, kindness and austerity. Prayer: St. Pachomius, we pray that all who live monastic cenobitic life may be faithful to the vows they profess.
In this episode we learn about the ancient practice of living as a hermit, and why people did so. We then look at how innovators like St. Anthony of Egypt and St. Pachomius the Great turned this individual experience into a communal one open not just to those who can survive by themselves in the desert, but to anyone wanting a cloistered life of peace and enlightenment. Even though from Pachomius came the idea of a monastery, this idea needed to be spread and defended. We will learn how this was done by the foremost Christian scholar of his day, St. Jerome, who went on to establish monastic communities for men and women in Bethlehem. 100 years after St. Jerome, monastic life would be improved further by the ideas and examples of St. Benedict, the great Abbot, and his twin sister, St. Scholastica, the great Abbess. Benedict's Rule would become the code of monks the world over for more than a millennium. The Rule was not only an inspired masterpiece for monks, but it also inspired political leaders like Charlemagne, and brought the governments of Europe one step closer to embracing Democracy and Constitutional government. They also allowed monasticism to become commonplace throughout Western Europe. These monks and their monasteries would lay the foundation to other great Western institutions like the University and the Scientific Method. Sources for this episode are... britannica.com franciscanmedia.org etymonline.org The Life of St. Antony --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/douglas-archibald6/support
Thursday of the 30th Week in Ordinary Time Saint of the Day: St. Abraham the Poor; born in Egypt, and became a disciple of St. Pachomius, the founder of cenobitic monasticism; spent almost two decades in a cave near Pachomius' foundations in the Delta; died 372 A.D. Office of Readings and Morning Prayer for 10/27/22 Gospel: Luke 13:31-35
In the book How They Love Mary, Fr. Edward wrote about Fr. Lukas Etlin, OSB, a monk of Conception Abbey. Today, a monk of Conception Abbey and the Vice Rector of Conception Seminary College, Fr. Pachomius Meade, OSB joins Fr. Edward to talk about monastic life, the selection of monastic names, the life of Fr. Lukas Etlin and his contribution to the life of the Church, and the connection of Conception Abbey to the Benedictine sisters in Clyde, Missouri. Learn more about Conception Abbey: conceptionabbey.org (conceptionabbey.org) Get your holy socks from Sock Religious: https://www.sockreligious.com/?rfsn=5170834.c28065 Buy Fr. Edward's book How They Love Mary from Sophia Institute Press: https://www.sophiainstitute.com/products/item/how-they-love-mary
Church History Part 9 Monastic Leaders Last time we looked at the rise of Monasticism and the decline of the Roman Empire! Today we will look at some of the early leaders of the Monastic movement. ~ Early leaders in the Monastic movement. Anthony 251-356. Born into a Christian family, and at the age of 18, he adopted the solitary ascetic life in the deserts of Egypt for 20 years. Many others followed his example. Anthony experienced extreme temptations of a demonic nature and often was unable to escape lustful thoughts. ~ Pachomius 292-346. Developed corporate monasticism, gathering ascetics into a community and imposing a code of discipline. These communities were self-supporting with crafts and growing food. Within the community, all personal wealth from individuals was placed into a common fund. These monastic communities were known for teaching basic literacy, reading & writing as well as Scripture memorisation. ~ Basil the Great 330-379. Bishop of Caesarea (Cappadocia). He is quite possibly the most important figure in Eastern monasticism. He developed a monasticism which was more outward looking in its perspective! His monastic communities provided medical treatment, relief for the poor and common agriculture. So important is Basil, that this is still the order within today's Greek Orthodox Church. ~ Athanasius. We looked at this man of God in a previous study. While Athanasius was in exile in Egypt, he met with Anthony & was impressed by the monastic lifestyle which Anthony strongly promoted. ~ Martin of Tours 316-397. Martin was the main figure in early Western Monasticism. He was the Bishop of Tours, France in 372, even though he would have preferred to be devoted to the solitary monastic life. Martin established a monastery at Tours as a centre for missionary endeavour & evangelisation. ~ Benedict of Nursia 480-547. Living in Italy, Benedict provided the definitive rule of Western monasticism based on prayer, work & a high moral character. These monasteries contributed greatly to maintain spiritual welfare during the Middle Ages, in spite of their drawbacks. The Benedictine communities were extremely popular and hundreds of monasteries were established. ~ Gregory the Great 540-604. Gregory is one of the most influential men in the history of the Roman Catholic Church. He was born into a wealthy Roman family, but he sold all his possessions, built 7 monasteries & adopted the monastic lifestyle. Gregory loved the Scriptures and was deeply devotional. He was elected as Pope in 590, and became the most powerful political & religious figure in Italy. He greatly increased the wealth & prestige of the Roman Catholic Church. In 596, he sent a missionary party to evangelise England. He called himself "servant of servants", "vicar of Christ on earth" and the successor of Peter. ~ Meanwhile, the church was spreading rapidly & the organisation within the church followed the Roman Empire governmental system. Every city was entitled to one bishop, and each province entitled to have one archbishop. Within the bishop's diocese, the hierarchy of offices was virtually the same as that of the Roman civil administration. The Church became very wealthy, particularly because it had strong State support. The Bishop of Rome, the Pope, became extremely wealthy by the end of the 5th century. The bishops of Rome, Alexandria, Constantinople, Antioch and Carthage became the most important. ~ That's it for this time! Next time we look at the church arriving in Britain! Thanks for listening! Tap or click here to save this as an audio mp3 file
Born in a village of Little Russia (now Belarus), he was kidnapped as a boy and sold to a Turkish tanner as a slave. He spent the next twenty-seven years in Usaki in Asia Minor, where he was forced to embrace Islam. After long years of servitude he escaped and, reclaiming his Christianity, went to the Holy Mountain, became a monk and lived for twelve years. Tormented by his former apostasy, he determined to suffer martyrdom for Christ. With the permission of his elder, Joseph, he returned to Usaki and showed himself to his former owner wearing his monastic habit. He was tortured, thrown into prison, and finally beheaded on on Ascension Day of 1730. His relics are buried on the island of Patmos in the Church of St John the Theologian, where they work many miracles.
Born in a village of Little Russia (now Belarus), he was kidnapped as a boy and sold to a Turkish tanner as a slave. He spent the next twenty-seven years in Usaki in Asia Minor, where he was forced to embrace Islam. After long years of servitude he escaped and, reclaiming his Christianity, went to the Holy Mountain, became a monk and lived for twelve years. Tormented by his former apostasy, he determined to suffer martyrdom for Christ. With the permission of his elder, Joseph, he returned to Usaki and showed himself to his former owner wearing his monastic habit. He was tortured, thrown into prison, and finally beheaded on on Ascension Day of 1730. His relics are buried on the island of Patmos in the Church of St John the Theologian, where they work many miracles.
The Arena Podcast is the flagship of Patristic Nectar Publications and contains the Sunday Sermons and other theological reflections by Father Josiah Trenham delivered from the ambon of St. Andrew Church in Riverside, California and begun in 2010. Currently there are more than 550 sermons and lectures covering ten years worth of preaching through the liturgical calendar. | Links | Register for the 2022 Annual Patristic Nectar Publications Conference entitled, Holy Orthodoxy: Presenting the Christian Faith https://www.crowdcast.io/e/holyorthodoxy/register Get your hands on a handmade custom Patristic Nectar coffee mug that is limited in quantity and here for our donors to Campaign for the Psalter and Upcoming Projects, while supplies last. https://www.patristicnectar.org/donations Visit our new merch store and support Patristic Nectar! https://patristic-nectar.mybigcommerce.com Please subscribe and rate the podcast! If you are interested in other available titles, or if you would like more information on Patristic Nectar Publications, please visit our website at PatristicNectar.org | Social Media | Patristic Nectar Films Youtube Channel Patristic Nectar Instagram Patristic Nectar Facebook Page | Support Our Ministry | 1) Spread the Word - tell your family and friends about Patristic Nectar. Share Patristic Nectar website links to content you have enjoyed. A personal invitation is the number one way the Church grows. Tell a friend to "Come and see!" 2) Make a Donation -Patristic Nectar is a small non-profit ministry with a big vision for expanding access to Patristic Orthodox teaching throughout the world. Since our establishment in 2010, we have made steady progress but there is so much more we could do. With funding, we can work to make our ministry vision a reality. Make a Donation Here 3) Pray For Us - remember us in your prayers, asking that the Lord strengthen, help, and direct us according to His divine will.
The Arena Podcast is the flagship of Patristic Nectar Publications and contains the Sunday Sermons and other theological reflections by Father Josiah Trenham delivered from the ambon of St. Andrew Church in Riverside, California and begun in 2010. Currently there are more than 550 sermons and lectures covering ten years worth of preaching through the liturgical calendar. | Links | Register for the 2022 Annual Patristic Nectar Publications Conference entitled, Holy Orthodoxy: Presenting the Christian Faith https://www.crowdcast.io/e/holyorthodoxy/register Get your hands on a handmade custom Patristic Nectar coffee mug that is limited in quantity and here for our donors to Campaign for the Psalter and Upcoming Projects, while supplies last. https://www.patristicnectar.org/donations Visit our new merch store and support Patristic Nectar! https://patristic-nectar.mybigcommerce.com Please subscribe and rate the podcast! If you are interested in other available titles, or if you would like more information on Patristic Nectar Publications, please visit our website at PatristicNectar.org | Social Media | Patristic Nectar Films Youtube Channel Patristic Nectar Instagram Patristic Nectar Facebook Page | Support Our Ministry | 1) Spread the Word - tell your family and friends about Patristic Nectar. Share Patristic Nectar website links to content you have enjoyed. A personal invitation is the number one way the Church grows. Tell a friend to "Come and see!" 2) Make a Donation -Patristic Nectar is a small non-profit ministry with a big vision for expanding access to Patristic Orthodox teaching throughout the world. Since our establishment in 2010, we have made steady progress but there is so much more we could do. With funding, we can work to make our ministry vision a reality. Make a Donation Here 3) Pray For Us - remember us in your prayers, asking that the Lord strengthen, help, and direct us according to His divine will.
Morning Prayer for Sunday, May 15, 2022 (The Fifth Sunday of Easter; Pachomius, Abbot of Tabennisi, 346). Psalm and Scripture readings (2-year lectionary; 60-day Psalter): Psalms 32, 36 Ecclesiastes 1 1 John 3:1-10 Click here to access the text for Morning Prayer at DailyOffice2019.com. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/dailyofficepodcast/support
His name in his native Coptic, Pachom, means "eagle." He was an Egyptian pagan who entered the Roman army at a young age. While quartered at Thebes, he was amazed at the kindness of the local Christians, who brought food and drink to the soldiers. Learning who they were, he believed in Christ and vowed, once released from the army, to serve him for the rest of his life. At the end of his military service, he was baptised and became the disciple of the hermit Palamon, with whom he lived for ten years. At a place called Tabennisis an angel appeared to him dressed in the robes of a monk and gave him a tablet on which was written a rule for a cenobitic monastery — one in which the brethren live communally rather than as hermits, something that had not been seen before among Christians. The angel commanded him to found such a monastery. Pachomius set to work, building many cells though there was no one to live there but himself and his brother John. When John questioned the unnecessary building, Pachomius only said that he was following God's command, without saying who would live there or when. But soon men began to assemble there, and in time so many came to be his disciples that he eventually founded nine monasteries housing thousands of monks. The rule that he gave (or had been given) for these monasteries became the model for all communal Christian monasticism thereafter. St Pachomius reposed in 346, before his great Egyptian fellow-strugglers St Anthony the Great and St Athanasius the Great. Entertaining angels unawares: Christian believers' simple acts of kindness toward their pagan oppressors may have seemed foolish to many, but it was such acts that opened the eyes of Pachomius to the light of Christ, and which bore incalculably great fruit: the founding of the monastic life which is still the backbone of Christ's Church.
Psalm 38; Ecclesiastes 1; 1 John 3:1-10 --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/christanglican-hotsprings/support
Psalms 32 & 36; Deuteronomy 16; Te Deum Laudamus --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/christanglican-hotsprings/support
Saint Pachomius the Great is one of the most important of the desert fathers of 3rd-4th century Egypt. He is the founder of cenobitic monasticism, that is, the type of monasticism where monks live together in communities. He came from a pagan family in Egypt, and was a conscript in the Roman Empire's army. During his service, he encountered the kindness of Christians, and resolved to be a Christian himself. He would found many monasteries in Egypt, and write the first known monastic rule for how monks should live and train themselves to grow closer to God.
Monday of the Fourth Week of Easter Saint of the Day: st. Pachomius, 292-348; soldier turned monk; built a monastery on the banks of the Nile, and was quickly joined by a hundred followers; built more monasteries and nunneries, and by the time of his death, there were 7,000 monks in his houses Office of Readings and Morning Prayer for 5/9/22 Gospel: John 10:1-10
A daily news briefing from Catholic News Agency, powered by artificial intelligence. Ask your smart speaker to play “Catholic News,” or listen every morning wherever you get podcasts. www.catholicnewsagency.com - Pope Francis said on Saturday that the Catholic liturgy should not be “a battleground” for “outdated issues.” Speaking at an audience with the Pontifical Liturgical Institute in the apostolic palace, the pope said that he believes that “every reform creates resistance.” “It's not possible to worship God while making the liturgy a battleground for issues that are not essential, indeed, outdated issues, and to take sides starting with the liturgy, with ideologies that divide the Church,” the pope said, speaking to the Pontifical Liturgical Institute. https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/251170/pope-francis-it-s-not-possible-to-worship-god-while-making-the-liturgy-a-battleground Several protesters dressed in "huge hats" and "red hooded gowns," disrupted a Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles Sunday morning. The costumes resembled those worn by members of the pro-abortion group Ruth Sent Us, which threatened to disrupt Catholic Masses on Sunday, Mother's Day, in response to a leaked draft opinion suggesting that the Supreme Court may be ready to overturn the landmark abortion decision Roe v Wade. While there were a handful of reported incidents of anger, violence, and provocation directed at Catholics and pro-life groups over the Mother's Day weekend, the demonstration in Los Angeles appeared to be the only one similar to the protests Ruth Sent Us has conducted in the past. The headquarters of Wisconsin Family Action, a pro-life organization in Madison, was set on fire in an apparent arson attack. The fire, which appeared to be started by a Molotov cocktail, was quickly put out by the Madison Fire Department. No one was hurt, police said. https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/251176/costumed-protesters-disrupt-los-angeles-mass https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/251174/threats-to-catholic-masses-mothers-day https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/251175/wisconsin-pro-life-groups-hq-set-ablaze-by-apparent-arson-attack Today, the Church celebrates Saint Pachomius, the founder of cenobitic monasticism, or monks who live in community. Pachomius first started out as a hermit in the desert, like many of the other men and women in the third and fourth centuries who sought the most radical expression of Christian life. His hermit friend, Palemon, helped him to build a monastery and Pachomius insisted that his fellow monks were to aspire to the austerity of the hermits. https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/saint/st-pachomius-454
Learn more about Pachomius at Pew Pew HQ. ★ Support this podcast ★
His name in his native Coptic, Pachom, means "eagle." He was an Egyptian pagan who entered the Roman army at a young age. While quartered at Thebes, he was amazed at the kindness of the local Christians, who brought food and drink to the soldiers. Learning who they were, he believed in Christ and vowed, once released from the army, to serve him for the rest of his life. At the end of his military service, he was baptised and became the disciple of the hermit Palamon, with whom he lived for ten years. At a place called Tabennisis an angel appeared to him dressed in the robes of a monk and gave him a tablet on which was written a rule for a cenobitic monastery — one in which the brethren live communally rather than as hermits, something that had not been seen before among Christians. The angel commanded him to found such a monastery. Pachomius set to work, building many cells though there was no one to live there but himself and his brother John. When John questioned the unnecessary building, Pachomius only said that he was following God's command, without saying who would live there or when. But soon men began to assemble there, and in time so many came to be his disciples that he eventually founded nine monasteries housing thousands of monks. The rule that he gave (or had been given) for these monasteries became the model for all communal Christian monasticism thereafter. St Pachomius reposed in 346, before his great Egyptian fellow-strugglers St Anthony the Great and St Athanasius the Great. Entertaining angels unawares: Christian believers' simple acts of kindness toward their pagan oppressors may have seemed foolish to many, but it was such acts that opened the eyes of Pachomius to the light of Christ, and which bore incalculably great fruit: the founding of the monastic life which is still the backbone of Christ's Church.
Born in a village of Little Russia (now Belarus), he was kidnapped as a boy and sold to a Turkish tanner as a slave. He spent the next twenty-seven years in Usaki in Asia Minor, where he was forced to embrace Islam. After long years of servitude he escaped and, reclaiming his Christianity, went to the Holy Mountain, became a monk and lived for twelve years. Tormented by his former apostasy, he determined to suffer martyrdom for Christ. With the permission of his elder, Joseph, he returned to Usaki and showed himself to his former owner wearing his monastic habit. He was tortured, thrown into prison, and finally beheaded on on Ascension Day of 1730. His relics are buried on the island of Patmos in the Church of St John the Theologian, where they work many miracles.
Born in a village of Little Russia (now Belarus), he was kidnapped as a boy and sold to a Turkish tanner as a slave. He spent the next twenty-seven years in Usaki in Asia Minor, where he was forced to embrace Islam. After long years of servitude he escaped and, reclaiming his Christianity, went to the Holy Mountain, became a monk and lived for twelve years. Tormented by his former apostasy, he determined to suffer martyrdom for Christ. With the permission of his elder, Joseph, he returned to Usaki and showed himself to his former owner wearing his monastic habit. He was tortured, thrown into prison, and finally beheaded on on Ascension Day of 1730. His relics are buried on the island of Patmos in the Church of St John the Theologian, where they work many miracles.
"Fill your lungs deeply with God so that you can breathe Christ into the world." -Caryll Houselander"What can be a greater vision than this: to see the invisible God in a visible person?"-Pachomius "Whether I be in the temple or the balcony, in the camp or in the flower garden, I tell you truly that every moment my Lord is taking His delight in me." -Kabir"I walked around the temple, enjoying this ecstasy. When I noticed that the intensity came down a little bit, all I had to do was inhale deeply into my heart and it came back up. It was so great. I thought, How compassionate is the Lord! Not only does he give the ecstasy, but he gives the method for keeping it. Oh, how sweet life is! It went on like this for days." -Krishna Das, Chants of a Lifetime (p. 123). Hay House. Kindle Edition.Bonus Quote:"Caught in the storm, battered by wavesThe ship of my life was blown off courseBy the winds of selfishness . . . My breath rises within me,the breath of the heart.The sweet breath.The sacred breath leads me in. Now the winds begin to die downand the waters grow calm.I have found a haven for my heart,In the Harbor of the Name. "— Krishna Das, Chants of a Lifetime (pp. 160-161). Hay House. Kindle EditionToday's Practice:Keep breathing your way into Love today using uneven breath counts (in for 5, out for 7), which silences the mind so you can feel Love for every breath... during every breath... AS every breath. Conscious breathing is one way to feel Go(o)d, and wherever you're feeling this formless Love, you'll see and experience It in form. I Love you, Niknikki@curlynikki.com
Let Us Pray to the Lord: Daily Prayer and Readings | 11/16/2021 Michael leads in prayer with the Rule of Pachomius. He then reads the daily Scripture readings and a portion from the Desert Fathers. The Rule of Pachomius: https://stmaryhillsboroughnj.org/files/Prayer/BeginningPrayersPrayerToSanticyTheHours.pdf Sayings of the Desert Fathers: http://www.g4er.tk/books/sayings-of-the-desert-fathers.pdf
Wednesday of the 30th Week in Ordinary Time Saint of the Day: St. Abraham the Poor; 4th Century hermit; born in Egypt, and became a disciple of St. Pachomius, the founder of cenobitic monasticism; spend almost two decades in a cave near Pachomius’ foundations; died 372 A.D. Office of Readings and Morning Prayer for 10/27/21 […] All show notes at Daybreak for October 27, 2021 - This podcast produced by Relevant Radio
Wednesday of the 30th Week in Ordinary Time Saint of the Day: St. Abraham the Poor; 4th Century hermit; born in Egypt, and became a disciple of St. Pachomius, the founder of cenobitic monasticism; spend almost two decades in a cave near Pachomius' foundations; died 372 A.D. Office of Readings and Morning Prayer for 10/27/21 […]
Welcome to Future Faith, a podcast, newsletter, and publication about living faithfully in an age of democratic destruction, ecological collapse, and economic irrelevance, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Substack:Every morning I go on a walk past a river, beside a centuries-old working millpond, into a graveyard and apple-laden church ground, and through the ruins of a twelfth-century abbey.If you walk around my village, you'll see dozens of houses that are made of the exact same stones as the former abbey.There's a reason for this: When Henry VIII dissolved all the monasteries and started his own church in order to self-bless his murder of innocent women, locals in my village stole the monastery's rocks.The faded tourist sign says that the locals treated the monastery as a “convenient quarry.”A convenient quarry.That's Christianity vs. Secularism in a nutshell, isn't it?Because it's inherently consumerist, post-modernity loves to harvest what Christians first cultivated:* Hospitals* Universities* Human rights* Universal basic incomeSecularism wants the kingdom without the king, the light without the power, the cathedral without the cornerstone.MonasteriesWhat do you picture when you hear the word “monk?”Old men in black robes?Old women in white robes?Why not a young bearded brewer who brews beer for the glory of God?Why not a stay-at-home dad who adores children and wants to adopt a dozen orphans?Why not a working mom who erects houses for the benefit of people who would never qualify for a mortgage?What do you picture when you hear the word “monastery?”A rotting stone building, utterly detached from the world?Why not a vibrant house, street, neighborhood, village, or city?When I hear the word “monastery,” I envision an estate.When Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries, he sold their buildings and land to whichever local elite offered the most cash.This allowed the British aristocracy to amass vast estates, with thousands of those plundered monasteries still owned by those same families to this day. (There are 144 estates over 10,000 acres in Scotland alone.)Michelle and I have visited dozens of estates on various outings around the UK:* Chatsworth (1,822 acres, down from 200,000) invented the banana we all know and love.* Buccleuch (217,000 acres) raises 19,670 sheep, 700 cattle, 32,000 hens, and 117 red deer hinds.* Atholl (124,000 acres) hosts weddings and functions, has a trailer park, and does castle tours.* Highclere (5,000 acres) shot to fame as the shooting location for Downton Abbey.When I picture a modern monastery, I picture a not-for-profit sustainable estate — studded with dozens of villages and hundreds of people — being run by kingdom principles for kingdom purposes.The kingdom economyThe poor will always be among us because the rich will always be above us.But not in the Acts 4 church, where there were “no needy people among them.”And not in today's monasteries, either.For nearly 1,700 years, Christian monks and nuns have practiced Universal Basic Income.In my travels, I've visited monasteries in Greece, Italy, Spain, England, Scotland, and elsewhere. I've been to many of the great foundations, including Monte Cassino, Assisi, Subiaco, etc. Monasteries are the last place in Christendom that still practice koinonia, the ancient and subversive Acts 2 practice that radically set apart the early church from the rest of society.Koinonia is often translated as “community” or “fellowship,” but both are really terrible translations. “Brotherhood” and “communion” come closer, but the best description of koinonia might be “non-political spiritual communism.”From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.This isn't forced or coerced secularist state-implemented communism. We know that doesn't work.This is a Holy Spirit-led sharing of life. It is a communal life the world can never know or re-create. In monasteries, koinonia looks like this: Everyone works a reasonable amount of time (typically 4–6 hours each day, 5–6 days each week) and contributes 100% of the proceeds to the monastery. The abbot and his team then ensure that everyone's needs are provided for: food, clothing, shelter, medical, soul care.No one is wealthy, but everyone is rich.The impossibility of individualityJust like biblical churches, monasteries aren't democracies.The abbot or abbess (from “abba,” meaning father) is in charge.All the brothers or sisters put their faith in Christ and their trust in their abbot, and he is to lead them well — not as coercive politicians do, but as a true servant-hearted leader.That's why most rich Westerners — single or otherwise — will never enter a monastery.It requires submission and surrender to a communal cause.How will they know us?I wish Christians were more like Jews and Muslims.You can always spot a Jew in the crowd.She's the one with gorgeous hair and the husband with the yarmulke.You can always spot a Muslim in the crowd.They're the ones not eating until sundown.I'm not saying we should cover our women or face east at sunset. You know what I mean. Christians are barely discernible.There's only ever been one marker that really separates Christians from our neighbors — unconditional love, even for those who hate us.But are we loving radically enough to make the world take notice in this attention culture?Where are all the disturbing Christians?Why don't people leave our presence feeling deeply unsettled?Being around Christians should feel conspiratorial, revolutionary, even dangerous.After all, we serve a God who wants to change everything.There is some biblical precedence for the concept of monasticism:* Elijah fled to the desert during a time of great persecution, and communed with God until the day he was called the restore the kingdom to their heavenly king.* Yahweh sent Moses and the Israelites into forty years of desert wanderings in order to shake off the mental shackles of slavery and prepare them for life as a free people.* John the Baptist counterintuitively moved to the desert to become an evangelist and prepare the way for his cousin Jesus.* If you study the life of Jesus, note how many times Christ removed himself “to a desolate place.”Notice how all of these “monks” were incredibly connected to God and deeply invested in the renewal of the world? Notice how setting themselves apart actually allowed them to dive into culture and make a greater impact? It's almost as though Christians are supposed to retreat in order to advance.Let's face it: Churches haven't been churches in a long time. Worship bands and motivational preachers and fancy buildings take precedence over sharing our wealth, living a rule of life in community, and housing the poor.It's almost as if the monastery is a place of reformation and preparation for the next move of God in our lives and our culture.First EgyptWhen most people think about monasteries, they assume it's just a retreat from “reality.”And it definitely can be that.But that wasn't the original intention, not by a mile.Inspired by Elijah and John the Baptist, monastics like Anthony the Great renounced the brutality, injustice, and oppression of the Egyptian mega-cities and moved to the desert to practice a Christ-centered life.Pachomius developed the idea of monks living together, and in doing so, creating an alternate social structure to stand in sharp contrast to the rest of the world.In an age before the Internet, social media, and viral videos, more than 50,000 people joined the Egyptian desert fathers and created what became known as Cities of God.From there, the movement went viral, spreading all over the planet.Monasteries aren't retreats— they're just new garden cities where the presence of God is actually welcomed.Because monastics renounce individualism and work together as humans were meant to do, it means they inevitably become places of great art and culture, both attracting outsiders and sending people back out.A nowhere always becomes a somewhere when Someone shows up.Then ItalyA college student named Benedict of Nursia grew so horrified by city life in Rome that he moved to the ruins of Nero's villa at Subiaco. Living by the simple rule of “ora et labora” (pray and work), Benedict founded twelve communities in all, laid the groundwork for Western monasticism, and single-handedly saved Western civilization from extinction.Benedict shapes every single day of our lives, and you can trace a direct line from Benedict's communities to the faith transformation of hundreds of millions of people over the past 1,500 years.A nowhere became a somewhere when Someone showed up.Then GermanyIn 1722, Nicolaus Ludwig Count von Zinzendorf bought a huge estate from his grandmother and invited several hundred Christian refugees to build a village on a corner of his estate.The Herrnhut story is now world-famous, especially the 24/7 prayer meeting that lasted for more than a century and sparked America's Great Awakening.The community sent out hundreds of missionaries to all parts of the world, ministering to slaves in the West Indies and the Inuit in Greenland.They founded a denomination that still has over 1,000 congregations.They played a vital role in the salvation of John Wesley, whose ministry has impacted tens of millions of hearts.One estate — one monastery — continues to impact lives nearly three centuries later.A nowhere became a somewhere when Someone showed up.Monasticism has problemsAs usual, religion crept in, always ready and willing to replace real leaps of faith.The monks in many monasteries I've visited get up far too early, hours before the sun, as though it's somehow “godly” to ignore the natural rhythms by which God saw fit to govern our biological bodies.Many monasteries fundamentally misunderstand prayer, spending four to six hours per day in the recitation of written chants instead of practicing a constant communion with Christ that leads to real action.Many monasteries are self-protective and entirely self-focused, completely ignoring the Scriptural call to go out to the ends of the earth — that we are the hands and feet of Christ who must go to seek and save the lost.Entrepreneurs for JesusWe are living in an age of democratic destruction, ecological collapse, and economic irrelevance.As the hyper-elites execute their Great Reset, the world is headed toward an unprecedented economic crisis. Within our lifetime, billionaires will control the global economy, the average house will cost $10 million, and surveillance currencies will dominate society.This new economy is creating millions of families in need of affordable shelter, climate refugees in need of resettlement, and workers in need of sustenance when they are excluded from the corporate economy.The church has a once-in-ten-generations opportunity to serve an unprecedented number of people in dire economic straights.Throughout history, monasteries have fulfilled the biblical mandate to provide food, clothing, and shelter to people in need. To fund these works of generosity and hospitality, monks and nuns have practiced sanctified stewardship for millennia:* Vatopedi Monastery grows olive oil.* Himmerod Abbey had a museum, art shop, cafe, guesthouse, and fishery.* Saint-Sixtus Abbey brews the best beer in the world.* Caldey Abbey makes perfume.* Ampleforth Abbey presses cider.* Prinknash Abbey blends incense.* Little Portion Hermitage runs a bakery.* Cîteaux Abbey ages cheese and makes caramels.* Buckfast Abbey hosts conferences and raises honeybees.* Lindores Abbey invented scotch.Depending on the skills and passions of the monks and nuns at each monastery, the community soon becomes self-sufficient — and because they live so simply, don't have a profit motive, and share everything in common, they soon have a surplus to share with a world in need.Questions to prayerfully considerWhere will God show up to meet real needs next?Will we be the ones to welcome Him in?My friend Andrew says that his job in life is to transfer as much earthly money into eternal value as possible.It begs some questions:* If all your needs were met and you didn't have to work a job to pay bills, what would you do for the kingdom?* How would you contribute to the kingdom if you didn't have to waste a moment working to pay rent or a mortgage?* How would you invest your time in eternity if you didn't have to enrich a land-lorder or a banker?Most people miss their calling because they get mired down trying to pay bills.God can and often does use us when we're working those dead-end jobs, but let's not pretend we weren't all made for more.You are unique in all of human history, with gifts and talents and strengths to contribute to the world that no money-hungry business could ever extract.“Vocation” comes from the Latin for “voice.”Does your work speak of who you are and whose you are?You are worth more than your paycheckWe can survive without bankers and landlords, but we can't live without farmers and mothers.So why do the former get paid so much more than the latter?Because we live in an upside-down society:* Insurance salesmen are incentivized to deny claims and let people die, while nurses suffer to keep people alive.* Fart app creators make millions while teachers have to buy their own chalk.* Bankers sit at a desk all day and type fake credit numbers into a screen, while active workers must pay them back by creating and handing over real wealth.Sadly, most of the vocations that really matter, the ones that are incredibly humanizing, are almost entirely devalued by the monetary system:* Caring for widows/single moms* Feeding the hungry* Clothing the naked* Visiting prisoners* Being a mother or father, especially to orphans, foster kids, and at-risk teens* Sustainable organic farming, forestry, and soil production* True education (not propagandizing or teach-to-test)* MentorshipBut these callings matter — really matter — in the monastery system.A vision for a modern monasteryImagine an estate.Hundreds or thousands of organic and sustainable acres under stewardship.Dozens of villages.Maybe even a garden city or two.Hundreds of families, couples, and singles by choice and by circumstance.With everyone answering a calling, practicing a real vocation, working as unto the Lord.Not one land-lorder or banker to lay waste to anyone's time.With all profits to advancing the kingdom of heaven instead of the empire of man.A group of people setting themselves apart in order to advance the Kingdom.Like the monastic movements of the past, this one monastery could serve as a template for hundreds or thousands of others to follow — a platform for launching new and better works around the world.It's time for Christians to make monasteries great again.A call to actionThe church of Christ has been a convenient quarry for secularism for the past century, and as our society now grounds itself to dust, there is an opportunity to rebuild cities of God on firm foundations with the only cornerstone that cannot be shaken.Please pray that God would send radically generous gospel patrons to fund the rebuilding efforts.Some of these city-monasteries will be family condos in high-rise towers.Some of these monasteries will be slums in hyper-cities.Some of these monasteries will dorms in universities.Some of these monasteries will be renovated abbeys and nunneries that have gone belly-up due to religion and a lack of vision.In our case, we sense ours will be some sort of village-packed eco-estate.Each of us needs to seek God's face on the kind of set-apart monk or nun He is calling us to become.We are the hands and feet of Jesus in this world. The harvest has and always will be plentiful, but the workers are few. So let's get to work.Thanks for listening to Future Faith. We are 100% follower-supported, so please head over to jaredbrock.com to partner with us as a gospel patron.If you think this episode is important and adds value to our global church family, please email the link to your friends or share it on social media. Get full access to Future Faith at jaredbrock.substack.com/subscribe
Psalms 32 & 36; Deuteronomy 16; Benedicite, Omnia Opera Domini --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/christanglican-hotsprings/support
Psalm 38; Ecclesiastes 1; 1 John 3:1-10 --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/christanglican-hotsprings/support
The Monks of Downside Abbey sing the plainchant Mass for the Memoria of St Pachomius. Recorded live at Downside Abbey on 15 May 2021.
Luke 9:43a | Pachomius of Tabenissi May 2021 meditations are written and recorded by Nia McKenney. Forward Day by Day is published and produced by Forward Movement. Explore our other podcasts, books, and blogs at forwardmovement.org
A daily news briefing from Catholic News Agency, powered by artificial intelligence. Ask your smart speaker to play “Catholic News,” or listen every morning wherever you get podcasts. www.catholicnewsagency.com - Pope Francis spoke at an online Vatican health conference on Saturday, offering his perspective on what it means to be human. The pope talked about the human soul, and human beings' openness to God. The conference also included speeches from Jane Goodall, Anthony Fauci, Chelsea Clinton, and Deepak Chopra. https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/247588/pope-francis-jane-goodall-speak-on-what-it-means-to-be-human-at-vatican-health-conference The pope on Sunday asked people to pray for the victims of a terrorist attack in Afghanistan. At least 50 people were killed and more than 100 injured in a bombing on Saturday outside of a school in Kabul. Many of the victims were young girls who attended the school. Pope Francis called the attack inhumane, and asked people to pray for each of the victims and their families, asking that God bring peace to the country. https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/247590/pope-francis-to-love-like-christ-means-saying-no-to-love-of-money-vanity-power Blessed Rosario Livatino, a Catholic judge brutally killed by the mafia in 1990, was beatified on Sunday in the Cathedral of Agrigento, Sicily. Livatino worked as a prosecutor in Sicily dealing with the criminal activity of the mafia throughout the 1980s. Pope Francis said Sunday, “He always placed his work under the protection of God; for this he became a witness of the Gospel until his heroic death.” https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/247589/rosario-livatino-beatified-in-sicily-honored-as-martyr-of-justice-and-faith Today the church celebrates St. Pachomius, a fourth century monk who likely was the first to create a Christian monastery where monks lived in community, rather than alone as hermits. https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/saint/st-pachomius-454
Welcome to the Mission Kids podcast! In addition to stories from the Bible, we will be looking at stories of the saints, as well as church history.Want to end up on the podcast? If you've got a birthday shout-out, prayer request, praise, or joke of the day, give me a call at 423-708-5354. Be blessed! - C Music produced by our very own MissionSong and Abacus Wave (Chris Sorenson).
We picked up this evening with Hypothesis I which we have been considering over the past month or so. Again the theme is repentance and the avoidance of despair. We have been presented with stories from the Gerontikon which is a collection of the saying of the elders. The focus of the first story we considered tonight was a monk who fell in love with an Egyptian woman. Her father went to a pagan priest and was instructed by a demon through that priest to tell the monk that if he denied God, denied his holy baptism, and rejected his monastic vows then he could marry his daughter. Yet despite doing all of these things, God did not abandon him. The demon acting through the pagan priest understood this and so told the father to refuse the monk's request to give his daughter in marriage. At that moment, the monk came to the realization of what he had done and repented with deep sorrow. Turning back to his elder, he was instructed to engage rigorously in a fast for weeks and to ask God for his mercy. Eventually the monk was given a vision of a dove entering into his mouth. At this the elder understood that God had received the monk's penance and restored him to the life of grace. This tells us something very important about the nature of repentance and far reaching it must be. Our penance cannot be something that has no meaning or value but must be a remedy that heals the wound hat led to the fall in the fall in the first place. We must also seek out the guidance of an elder, like this young monk, who not only can instruct us but also intercede on our behalf before God. Following this, an elder teaches us that when a person is experienced in asceticism and has built his life on the very things to draw him closer to God, falls from grace, he can return more quickly along the path to holiness because even though his house, as it were, may have been demolished he still has readily available all the materials from which constructed it. A person newly initiated into the spiritual life, however, will not only have to build the house but search for the materials. Both suffered the demolition and distraction brought about by their sin, but the one whose life had long been directed toward God can return with a greater swiftness. Discussion then ensued about how we understand affliction in light of all the things that we have been talking about in regards to repentance. How does one not fall into despair when afflicted again and again? It is only when our knowledge of God is no carried tale and no abstract notion but rather the fruit of a relationship of love that we are able to see through the tears in the darkness and find our way into the embrace of the loving God. This is what we must seek to possess ourselves and to which we must guide others. --- Text of chat during the group: 00:37:59 Tyler Woloshyn: This reminds me of St. Mary of Egypt's retreat into the wilderness to overcome the passions that surrounded her, yet in that long suffering she overcame it with the greatest ascetism and prayer. 00:38:13 Lilly Vasconcelos: Sin is sin. I dislike the idea of venial vs mortal, just my opinion. We should strive for holiness :) 00:39:33 Tyler Woloshyn: Very Byzantine focus there Lilly. Categorizations can sometimes complicate the examination of conscience. 00:45:36 Tyler Woloshyn: St. Pachomius of Egypt? 00:46:25 Erick Chastain: Modern-day Egypt, back then it was Thebes 00:47:47 Wayne Mackenzie: It's the rule of Pachomis 00:49:51 Tyler Woloshyn: The Prayer of St. Pachomius at least for the Jesus Prayer sure sets a wonderful template for building a crescendo for praying the Jesus Prayer. 00:50:12 Wayne Mackenzie: yes 00:50:50 Eric Williams: Rule of St. Pachomius: http://www.saintjonah.org/services/stpachomius.htm 00:51:04 Joseph Muir: Thank you, Eric! 00:56:56 carolediclaudio: I'm late- what page are we on? :) 00:58:18 carolnypaver: 25 00:58:26 Wayne Mackenzie: p 25 00:58:28 Tyler Woloshyn: Acedia, which Evagarios of Pontus talks about those 8 passions. Despair being grave. 00:58:28 carolnypaver: bottom 00:58:39 carolediclaudio: Thank you! 01:09:45 Lilly Vasconcelos: Thank you Father David :) 01:10:20 Tyler Woloshyn: Christ is Risen! Thank you for the wonderful explanations and being very welcoming Fr. David. 01:10:24 carolediclaudio: Yes, very beautiful. So sorry was late. 01:11:38 Lilly Vasconcelos: I brought 2 more Canadians 01:11:43 Lilly Vasconcelos: Hahaha 01:11:49 Katharine M: :D 01:11:59 carolediclaudio: Good :) 01:13:45 Sue and Mark: YES!!!!!! 01:13:58 Erick Chastain: That would be great! 01:14:16 Eric Williams: Maybe “The Way of a Pilgrim”? 01:14:17 Daniel Allen: perfect i won't have to buy another copy
Pete Burak is joined by Joey McCoy of Zion to discuss Henri Nouwen's book, The Way of the Heart, principles for our lives based on the Desert Fathers, and how we are all called to the contemplative life. Joey shares some of his personal journey with the Lord and Pete gives a brief reflection on St. Paul's enthusiasm for Jesus found in the first chapter of Colossians.
He was born and raised an unbeliever, but came to faith in Christ as a young man. Not long after being baptised, he heard of Pachomius (May 15) and fled to join him in the desert. Saint Pachomius accepted Theodore as a monk and, because of his humility and obedience, came to esteem him most highly of all the brethren. Theodore's sister joined him in the desert, taking up life in a women's monastery and becoming its abbess. When their mother came to bring them back from the desert, she in turn was persuaded to stay in the women's monastery as a monastic. Finally, Theodore's brother Paphnutius also came to the monastery and was tonsured. Once the Bishop of Panopolis asked Saint Pachomius to build a monastery for him; Pachomius entrusted Theodore to carry out the work. Some of the brethren grumbled at the authority given to Theodore, for he was younger than many of them; but St Pachomius said: 'Theodore and I fulfill the same service for God; and he also has the authority to give orders as father.' When St Pachomius reposed, he left St Theodore to be spiritual father to the monasteries that he had founded, a task which he faithfully fulfilled until his death at a great age.
Seventeen hundred years ago St Pachomius came up with a novel solution to the problems of a solitary existence for desert ascetics. Do Church and society need a new Pachomius today?
The Monks of Downside Abbey sing the plainchant Mass for the Feast of St Pachomius. Recorded live at Downside Abbey on 15 May 2020.
His name in his native Coptic, Pachom, means "eagle." He was an Egyptian pagan who entered the Roman army at a young age. While quartered at Thebes, he was amazed at the kindness of the local Christians, who brought food and drink to the soldiers. Learning who they were, he believed in Christ and vowed, once released from the army, to serve him for the rest of his life. At the end of his military service, he was baptised and became the disciple of the hermit Palamon, with whom he lived for ten years. At a place called Tabennisis an angel appeared to him dressed in the robes of a monk and gave him a tablet on which was written a rule for a cenobitic monastery — one in which the brethren live communally rather than as hermits, something that had not been seen before among Christians. The angel commanded him to found such a monastery. Pachomius set to work, building many cells though there was no one to live there but himself and his brother John. When John questioned the unnecessary building, Pachomius only said that he was following God's command, without saying who would live there or when. But soon men began to assemble there, and in time so many came to be his disciples that he eventually founded nine monasteries housing thousands of monks. The rule that he gave (or had been given) for these monasteries became the model for all communal Christian monasticism thereafter. St Pachomius reposed in 346, before his great Egyptian fellow-strugglers St Anthony the Great and St Athanasius the Great. Entertaining angels unawares: Christian believers' simple acts of kindness toward their pagan oppressors may have seemed foolish to many, but it was such acts that opened the eyes of Pachomius to the light of Christ, and which bore incalculably great fruit: the founding of the monastic life which is still the backbone of Christ's Church.
Psalms 75 & 76; Deuteronomy 16; Ecce, Deus --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/christanglican-hotsprings/support
Psalm 77; Ecclesiastes 1; 1 John 3:1-12 --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/christanglican-hotsprings/support
Daily devotional offering for 5/15/2020 Matthew 7:3 Pachomius of Tabenissi
St. Macarius the Great On the 25th day of the Coptic month of Baramhat we celebrate the life of St Macarius the Great.Macarius was born in the Egyptian city of Shabsheer-Menuf to good and righteous parents. His father's name was Abraham and his mother's name was Sarah and, like the Biblical references, they too had no son. In a vision at night Abraham saw the angel of the Lord and told him that God was about to give him a son, that his name will be known all over the earth, and he will have a multitude of spiritual sons. Shortly after, Macarius (which means "Blessed”) was born.He was obedient to his parents, and the grace of God was upon him from a young age. When he grew up his father forced him to get married against his will, so he pretended that he was sick for several days, avoiding his new wife. Then he asked his father if he might go to the wilderness to relax to help him recover from his illness faster. He went to the wilderness and prayed to the Lord Christ to direct him to do what is pleasing to the Lord. While he was in the wilderness he saw a vision. A Cherubim took his hands, ascended up to the top of a mountain, and showed him all the desert in all directions. The Cherub told him: "God has given this desert to you and your sons for an inheritance." When he returned from the wilderness he found that God had received his virgin wife. Shortly after, his parents also departed. Macarius gave all that he had inherited to the poor and needy. When the people of Shabsheer saw his chastity and purity, they took him to the bishop of Ashmoun who ordained him a priest for them. They built a place for him outside the city. They went to him to confess and to partake from the Holy Mysteries. They also appointed a servant to take care of his needs and to sell for him the work of his hands.When Satan saw Macarius grow in virtues, he brought on him a severe temptation. He inspired a girl that had defiled herself with a man to claim that Macarius was the defiler. Her family went to him, insulted and beat him severely, inflicting much pain. Macarius endured silently, saying to himself, "O Macarius now you have a wife and a child, and it is meet for you to work day and night for your own food and for that of your child and your wife." He worked continually at weaving mats and baskets, giving them to his servant to sell, then giving the money to the woman. When the day of her delivery drew near her labor was exceedingly difficult. She suffered for four days and did not deliver until she confessed her false accusation and named the man that defiled her.Her family wanted to beg for forgiveness, but Macarius, having heard of her confession, fled from them for fear of vanity.At that time he was 30 years old, and the angel of the Lord appeared to him and walked with him for two days until they came to Wadi El-Natroun and Macarius asked the angel: "Appoint for me O master a place to live in." The angel replied: "I have not marked out a place for you to live, lest you leave it in the future and transgress the commandment of God. Behold, all the wilderness is yours, so wheresoever you wish, live there."Macarius dwelt in the Inner Desert, in the place of the monastery of Sts. Maximus and Domadius which is known now by the monastery of El-Baramous. He went to visit St. Antonios, who said about Macarius, when he saw him, "This is an Israelite in whom there is no guile."St. Antonios put on him the Holy Eskeem, then Macarius returned to his place. When the number of monks increased around him he built a church for them. His fame was known all over the country and many kings and Emperors heard about the miracles that God performed through his hands. He healed the daughter of the king of Antioch that was possessed by an unclean spirit. The angel of the Lord appeared to him and took him to a place and told him to make this place his abode, for many people will come to him in that place. He built a cell for himself and a church.He thought one day that the world had no more righteous people, so a voice came to him from heaven saying: "In the city of Alexandria there are two women who fear God." He took his staff, his provisions, and went to Alexandria and asked around until he reached their house. When he entered, they welcomed him, washed his feet with warm water, and when he asked them about their life, one of them told him thus, "There is no kinship between us and when we married these two brothers we asked them to leave us to be nuns but they refused. So we committed ourselves to spend our life fasting and prayers till evening. Each of us had a son, when one of them cried, any one of us would carry and nurse him even if he was not her own son. We are in one living arrangement. The unity in opinion is our model, and our husbands work is shepherding sheep. We are poor and only have our daily bread and what is left over we give it to the poor and needy."When Macarius heard these words he cried saying: "Indeed God looks to the readiness of the heart and grants the grace of His Holy Spirit for all those who wish to worship him." He bade them farewell and left returning to the wilderness.On the day of his departure, he saw Sts. Antonios and Pachomius, with a company of saints, and he delivered up his soul. He was ninety-seven years old.Lessons from this storyWalking the thin road of salvation is very difficult. In Theophan the Recluse’s book “Unseen Warfare”, the writer warns of this danger. As you struggle to shake off the dirt of this world and begin to attain purity before the Lord, you begin to rise. Like a balloon rising ever more to the heavens. But take care, for at this state the slightest wind can change your course. A beautiful analogy on the struggles these saints go through.Here we have a humbled soul that even when falsely accused did not defend himself. Like Saint Marina the Ascetic, Saint Macarius took this charge against him without defense. Yet when the truth was revealed and someone was seeking forgiveness from this saint - he fled. But then later, he fell into judgement of the world, thinking there were no more righteous people in the world. And God showed him but one example of others who sacrifice themselves to God. Theophan the Recluse’s point is well taken, that if you aspire to achieve purity before the Lord, you can quickly fall victim to a single breeze of vanity.Consider this, the two women God directed the saint to visit are without names. They may never be listed in the Synxar or celebrated in a feast. But God knows them purposefully. As we read the life of one saint, know there are probably hundreds more that go unnoticed by us - but never by God the Father, Creator of all.PrayerThank you God for these lives lived in the Glory of Your name. Help us to learn from their examples that we too may achieve purity in Your eyes - whether noticed or unnoticed. For in truth, we must know that when we are known the devil is tempted to attack us. Give us strength to live in purity and chastity for an example to You alone. May the prayers and intercessions of Saint Macarius the Great be with us always, amen.
His name in his native Coptic, Pachom, means "eagle." He was an Egyptian pagan who entered the Roman army at a young age. While quartered at Thebes, he was amazed at the kindness of the local Christians, who brought food and drink to the soldiers. Learning who they were, he believed in Christ and vowed, once released from the army, to serve him for the rest of his life. At the end of his military service, he was baptised and became the disciple of the hermit Palamon, with whom he lived for ten years. At a place called Tabennisis an angel appeared to him dressed in the robes of a monk and gave him a tablet on which was written a rule for a cenobitic monastery — one in which the brethren live communally rather than as hermits, something that had not been seen before among Christians. The angel commanded him to found such a monastery. Pachomius set to work, building many cells though there was no one to live there but himself and his brother John. When John questioned the unnecessary building, Pachomius only said that he was following God's command, without saying who would live there or when. But soon men began to assemble there, and in time so many came to be his disciples that he eventually founded nine monasteries housing thousands of monks. The rule that he gave (or had been given) for these monasteries became the model for all communal Christian monasticism thereafter. St Pachomius reposed in 346, before his great Egyptian fellow-strugglers St Anthony the Great and St Athanasius the Great. Entertaining angels unawares: Christian believers' simple acts of kindness toward their pagan oppressors may have seemed foolish to many, but it was such acts that opened the eyes of Pachomius to the light of Christ, and which bore incalculably great fruit: the founding of the monastic life which is still the backbone of Christ's Church.
He was born and raised an unbeliever, but came to faith in Christ as a young man. Not long after being baptised, he heard of Pachomius (May 15) and fled to join him in the desert. Saint Pachomius accepted Theodore as a monk and, because of his humility and obedience, came to esteem him most highly of all the brethren. Theodore's sister joined him in the desert, taking up life in a women's monastery and becoming its abbess. When their mother came to bring them back from the desert, she in turn was persuaded to stay in the women's monastery as a monastic. Finally, Theodore's brother Paphnutius also came to the monastery and was tonsured. Once the Bishop of Panopolis asked Saint Pachomius to build a monastery for him; Pachomius entrusted Theodore to carry out the work. Some of the brethren grumbled at the authority given to Theodore, for he was younger than many of them; but St Pachomius said: 'Theodore and I fulfill the same service for God; and he also has the authority to give orders as father.' When St Pachomius reposed, he left St Theodore to be spiritual father to the monasteries that he had founded, a task which he faithfully fulfilled until his death at a great age.
His name in his native Coptic, Pachom, means "eagle." He was an Egyptian pagan who entered the Roman army at a young age. While quartered at Thebes, he was amazed at the kindness of the local Christians, who brought food and drink to the soldiers. Learning who they were, he believed in Christ and vowed, once released from the army, to serve him for the rest of his life. At the end of his military service, he was baptised and became the disciple of the hermit Palamon, with whom he lived for ten years. At a place called Tabennisis an angel appeared to him dressed in the robes of a monk and gave him a tablet on which was written a rule for a cenobitic monastery — one in which the brethren live communally rather than as hermits, something that had not been seen before among Christians. The angel commanded him to found such a monastery. Pachomius set to work, building many cells though there was no one to live there but himself and his brother John. When John questioned the unnecessary building, Pachomius only said that he was following God's command, without saying who would live there or when. But soon men began to assemble there, and in time so many came to be his disciples that he eventually founded nine monasteries housing thousands of monks. The rule that he gave (or had been given) for these monasteries became the model for all communal Christian monasticism thereafter. St Pachomius reposed in 346, before his great Egyptian fellow-strugglers St Anthony the Great and St Athanasius the Great. Entertaining angels unawares: Christian believers' simple acts of kindness toward their pagan oppressors may have seemed foolish to many, but it was such acts that opened the eyes of Pachomius to the light of Christ, and which bore incalculably great fruit: the founding of the monastic life which is still the backbone of Christ's Church.
Fr. Kyrillos Ibrahim- Servant's Edification Lecture. A reflection on the ascetical life through exploring the conversion, calling and virtues of St. Pachomius and the monastic Koinonia.
He was born and raised an unbeliever, but came to faith in Christ as a young man. Not long after being baptised, he heard of Pachomius (May 15) and fled to join him in the desert. Saint Pachomius accepted Theodore as a monk and, because of his humility and obedience, came to esteem him most highly of all the brethren. Theodore's sister joined him in the desert, taking up life in a women's monastery and becoming its abbess. When their mother came to bring them back from the desert, she in turn was persuaded to stay in the women's monastery as a monastic. Finally, Theodore's brother Paphnutius also came to the monastery and was tonsured. Once the Bishop of Panopolis asked Saint Pachomius to build a monastery for him; Pachomius entrusted Theodore to carry out the work. Some of the brethren grumbled at the authority given to Theodore, for he was younger than many of them; but St Pachomius said: 'Theodore and I fulfill the same service for God; and he also has the authority to give orders as father.' When St Pachomius reposed, he left St Theodore to be spiritual father to the monasteries that he had founded, a task which he faithfully fulfilled until his death at a great age.
His name in his native Coptic, Pachom, means "eagle." He was an Egyptian pagan who entered the Roman army at a young age. While quartered at Thebes, he was amazed at the kindness of the local Christians, who brought food and drink to the soldiers. Learning who they were, he believed in Christ and vowed, once released from the army, to serve him for the rest of his life. At the end of his military service, he was baptised and became the disciple of the hermit Palamon, with whom he lived for ten years. At a place called Tabennisis an angel appeared to him dressed in the robes of a monk and gave him a tablet on which was written a rule for a cenobitic monastery — one in which the brethren live communally rather than as hermits, something that had not been seen before among Christians. The angel commanded him to found such a monastery. Pachomius set to work, building many cells though there was no one to live there but himself and his brother John. When John questioned the unnecessary building, Pachomius only said that he was following God's command, without saying who would live there or when. But soon men began to assemble there, and in time so many came to be his disciples that he eventually founded nine monasteries housing thousands of monks. The rule that he gave (or had been given) for these monasteries became the model for all communal Christian monasticism thereafter. St Pachomius reposed in 346, before his great Egyptian fellow-strugglers St Anthony the Great and St Athanasius the Great. Entertaining angels unawares: Christian believers' simple acts of kindness toward their pagan oppressors may have seemed foolish to many, but it was such acts that opened the eyes of Pachomius to the light of Christ, and which bore incalculably great fruit: the founding of the monastic life which is still the backbone of Christ's Church.
Desert Spirituality (Part Three) St. Pachomius of Thebes A five-part Lenten series on the spirituality of the desert fathers and mothers, focusing on specific monks and the Christian virtues they embodied. The Reverend Thomas McKenzie March 7, 2018 Church of the Redeemer, Nashville
Church History: Chapter 18 – St. Benedictine and Early Monasticism The secularization of the church had many effects, both good and bad. As the first Christian emperor, Constantine passed significant laws demonstrating a Christian influence on the state. But against this background of faith came lives of sin and disregard for the holy, which led to the rise of monasticism Among many of the monastics and the movements associated with them, we see them living in self-denial moved by a spirit of humility and love. This is particularly true of St. Benedict. Benedict was born around 480 in Nursia (modern Norcia, Italy, north of Rome). And although he was born into a family of wealthy nobility he never esteemed the world’s goods. Benedict is attributed with a creating a “Rule” to govern the monastic life in ways that make constructive Christian growth in community life. These rules governed not only the monasteries for Benedict, but they also became the core rules for many monastic communities in Western Christendom even today. Key Words St. Benedictine, Constantine, secularization, “Eremitical monasticism,” “Cenobitism,” or a cloistered life. St. Pachomius. Paul the Simple, Isodore of Pelusium, Macarius the Egyptian, Simeon the Stylite, Macarius the Younger, Gregory, Gregory’s Dialogue, Enfide, Monte Cassino, Rule of St. Benedict
Does life-wisdom offer the same message to the non-disillusioned, who are often on the younger side, as it does to the disillusioned, who are often over-50? It's a live issue for me, since a gospel of hope to the shattered can sound depressing to people who are working on wresting something like success from life. Interestingly, many religious pioneers, from Pachomius to Zwingli, from Clare to the "Little Flower", were young when they received a message of negation, but also a new and different theme of affirmation. Is there a philosophical link between "Build Me Up, Buttercup" (The Foundations) and "The Levee's Gonna Break" (Dylan)? That's the subject of this podcast.
Pachomius: A Man of Scripture and Humility. Dr. Nassif explores the biography of St. Pachomius, the founder of communal monasticism. Important insights are shared on a central goal of Christian parenting, and the true nature of Church leadership. Parents and Church leaders will grow from the life of this great desert Father!
Homily of Fr. Gerard Gross, OCSO
This episode continues our series examining the impact Christianity had on history & culture. Today we consider how the Faith impacted the world's view of Charity & Compassion.Early Christians quickly gained a reputation for their concern for the poor & disenfranchised. Unlike paganism with its acceptance of fate & the Greco-Roman enforcement of social classes, the Gospel viewed all human beings as created in God's image & of equal value. Having its roots firmly in Judaism, Christianity considered justice to include a healthy dose of mercy & compassion. The Law of Moses regulated the treatment of slaves so they retained their dignity. It required the corners of fields be left unharvested so the poor could glean. And it required an annual tithe to be set aside specially for the poor & needy. All of this was unheard of in the pagan world.Building on this base of Jewish charity was the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 25 who said that taking care of the hungry, the sick & prisoners was a kindness shown to none other than Himself.The parable of the Good Samaritan was one of the favorites of the Faith & shaped the Church's mindset toward the needy.In the mid 3rd C, Tertullian in North Africa records that Christians had a common fund to which they voluntarily contributed. No strong-arm fundraising was needed; believers were glad to add coins to the box whenever they could. This fund supported widows, the disabled, orphans, the sick & prisoners jailed for their faith. It was also on occasion used to bury the poor & to purchase a slave's freedom.All of this stands in marked contrast with the Greco-Roman attitude toward the poor. They practiced what was known as liberalitas. This was assistance a wealthy benefactor showed to a someone in need, with an eye to their repaying the favor someday, somehow. In Roman society, the upper classes rose in status by having lots & lots of clients who supported you. They shouted your name when cued to do so at some public event. The louder your name was shouted, the more supporters you had & so the more prestige you garnered. So a wealthy Roman would help someone who was needy only if that person could go on to add his voice to his support base. It wasn't genuine charity; it was buying support. I'll help you today, if you shout my name tomorrow real loud and get all your family & friends to do the same. The motive was selfish.Charity just for the sake of helping someone in need was officially considered by both the Greeks & Romans as being weak & counter-productive. Someone who'd fallen onto hard times & couldn't rescue himself was pathetic, not worthy of concern. And who knows; their poverty or illness might be the work of the gods, punishment for some foul sin. So don't alleviate their suffering or you might incur the wrath of the fickle deities who controlled the fate of mere mortals.I just said that charity wasn't officially allowed in pagan society for these reasons. But history tells us while Paganism didn't practice it, some pagans occasionally did. Almost all cases we know of where people reached out to help others in need was when some catastrophe like an earthquake struck of fire swept a city. Then the suffering was so widespread & in everyone's face people couldn't avoid helping in some way. But generally, in day to day life, all giving to the needy had a self-serving end.Christians didn't practice the selfish liberalitas of the Romans. They practiced caritas – compassionate caring. There was no thought of what one was going to get out of such care. It was done simply because the person receiving the help needed it. The motive was to glorify God.Believers were moved by the words of 1 John 4:10–11 – “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”They remembered what Paul had written in Philippians 2:4 – “Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.”In the 5th C, Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem, sold the treasures & ornaments of the church to provide relief for starving people and in the 10th C, the bishop of Winchester sold all the gold & silver vessels of the cathedral to relieve the poor during a harsh famine. He justified his actions saying, “There is no reason the temple of God should abound in riches when the living temples of the Holy Spirit starve.” Historian Christopher Dawson recorded that nearly every local church had an official list of widows & the needy they supported and the sums given by those with means was substantial.Christians didn't just keep their charity to themselves; they met the needs of those outside the church as well. Both the Didache & the 2nd C letter called the Shepherd of Hermas called believers to meet the needs of all those who had genuine need. Providing such charity turned into risky business. By the 3rd C Christians had gained a reputation for their selfless love and this attracted even more to them. So 2 Emperors forbade prisoners from receiving outside help – which was a death sentence since their food came from what family & friends provided. Though it was against the law, Christians continued taking care of prisoners. Thankfully, few jailors enforced the Emperors' edicts since they didn't want their prisoners dying.The charity of the early Christians flowed from the wider sense of compassion Jesus had consistently demonstrated throughout His life. The Gospels regularly comment on how Jesus was moved with compassion and reached out to take care of poor & needy souls. Since being a disciple meant being just like their Rabbi, the Christians sought to install compassion as one of their key virtues.Yet as with charity, in paganism, compassion was not esteemed. The formative Greek thinker Plato said that a poor man, & especially a slave, who was no longer able to work because of sickness or age ought to be left to die. The famous Greek physician Aesculapius refused treatment to patients he deemed not worthy of surviving. The Roman philosopher Plautus said, “You do a beggar bad service by giving him food and drink; you lose what you give and prolong his life for more misery.”In the 5th C BC, the Greek historian Thucydides [thoo-sid-a-dees] reported when a massive plague struck Athens during the Peloponnesian War, unaffected Athenians fled, leaving the sick behind to tend themselves. In the mid-4th C AD, the Emperor Julian the Apostate, who, as his name implies, hated Christians, couldn't help but give them grudging respect that they alone stayed to tend the sick when a plague struck the Empire. He wrote, “The impious Galileans (his word for Christians, whom he called impious because they refused to worship the pagan gods) These impious Galileans relieve both their own poor and ours. It is shameful that ours should be so destitute of our assistance.”Of course, we need only look back a few episodes to be reminded of the shocking lack of compassion Roman society had when we consider the popularity of the gladiatorial games. Compassion runs thin when life is cheap.The compassion & charity of Christians stood out all the more when it was seen against the backdrop of a brutal Roman culture. Jesus had said, “Greater love has no one than this; that he lay down his life for his friends.” Christians sought to demonstrate that love in the streets & byways of the Empire. And it had a profound effect in drawing people to faith in Christ.The story of Pachomius is just one of many examples. Pachomius was a pagan soldier in Emperor Constantine's army. He watched while Christians brought food to his fellow soldiers afflicted with famine & disease & was profoundly moved. When he learned they were motivated by a religion called Christianity he became curious to understand a doctrine that inspired them to such love & generosity. So he began to study the faith and was soon a convert. Something similar to that was duplicated tens of thousands of times all across the Empire.Pachomius and others were moved by the compassionate acts of the Christians because Greco-Roman culture just didn't see the hungry, sick, and dying as worthy of assistance. The worth of a human being was determined by external & accidental circumstances in proportion to the position one held in the community or state. A human being only had value as a citizen, but very few people qualified as citizens. So the sick, poor, & lower classes like slaves, artisans, & other manual workers for whom the Christians had compassion, weren't citizens in the eyes of freemen. Non-citizens were defined as having no purpose and so not worthy to be helped when their lives were in jeopardy. In their dire condition they received no food or physical protection.So it's understandable why Christianity spread most rapidly in the early centuries among, can you guess who? Yeah – the poor & needy, among slaves & the disenfranchised. That's why it came under the scrutiny of officials & scorn of the elite. Now, to be sure, there were both highly placed believers as well as some of the ancient world's most intelligent & erudite. But generally, officials feared that Christianity would rally the lower classes to rebel while the unbelieving elite shunned it as a religion for the pathetic.They were wrong then. They're wrong still. In truth, today's liberalism is but a secularized version of Christian charity & compassion. But without the God who declares life sacred, liberalism's commitment to compassion will be traded in for paganism's utilitarianism. A process already well under way.
This episode is titled, “The Spreading Tree “Tertullian, pastor of the church of Carthage in North Africa, addressed unbelievers at the beginning of the 3rd C, saying à“We are but of yesterday, and yet we already fill your cities, islands, camps, your palace, senate and forum; we have left to you only your temples.”That introduces our theme for this episode; the expansion of the Faith in the early centuries.Writing in the middle of the 2nd C, Justin Martyr said,“There is no people, Greek or barbarian, or of any other race, by whatsoever appellation or manners they may be distinguished, however ignorant of arts or agriculture, whether they dwell in tents or wander about in covered wagons—among whom prayers and thanksgivings are not offered in the name of the crucified Jesus to the Father and Creator of all things.”Comments by other Early Church leaders like Irenæus, Arnobius, & Origen lead us to conclude that by the end of the 3rd C the name of Christ was known, revered, & persecuted in many provinces & cities of the Roman Empire. In one of his edicts, the Emperor Maximian says that “almost all” had abandoned the worship of the old gods for the new sect called Christianity.In the absence of hard numbers, tallying the number of Jesus' followers can't be precise, but a reasonable assumption of the faithful stands about 10 to 12% of the total population at the beginning of the 4th C. In some places, the number was much higher as local movements saw the Gospel take firmer root. According to Chrysostom, the Christian population of the city of Antioch at the end of the 4th C. was half the whole.While 10% of the entire Empire may not seem that impressive a number, keep in mind that 10% shared a spiritual unity that made them appear a far larger group when set over against the highly-fragmented 90% of the pagan world.Looking back to Asia where the whole thing started, the Apostles had spread the new faith over Israel, Syria, & Asia Minor. According to Pliny the Younger, at the dawn of just the 2nd C, the pagan temples in Asia Minor were almost completely neglected & animal sacrifices hardly performed because so many pagan had converted to the new faith.In a first step of what would prove to be a major outreach to the East, during the 2nd C Christianity took root in the city of Edessa in Mesopotamia along with several regions in Persia. In the 3rd C., it reached North into Armenia & South into Arabia.There's an enduring legend that the apostles Thomas & Bartholomew carried the Gospel to India. For sure, a Christian teacher named Pantaeus of Alexandria went there about 190. By the 4th C, vibrant national churches were growing in the subcontinent.It was the moving of the seat of power from Rome to Constantinople in the early 4th C that helped ensure the migration of the Faith eastward. It also meant that all the important early Church Councils were held in or around Constantinople. The great doctrinal controversies over the Trinity & Nature of Christ were carried out mostly in Asia Minor, Syria, & Egypt.Speaking of Egypt, Christianity in Africa gained a firm foothold first there, during the time of the Apostles. The city of Alexandria was a world center of learning & culture. It's libraries & schools drew from all over the world and many Jews called it home. It was in Alexandria that the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek, 200 yrs before Jesus. This Greek Bible, called the Septuagint, opened the seemingly opaque ideas of the Jews to Gentiles seekers after truth for the first time. It was in Alexandria that the religion of Moses was set alongside the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. It was there the Jewish philosopher Philo sought to harmonize Greek & Jewish thought. Many of his ideas were picked up by later Christian apologists in defending the faith against Roman misconceptions.Ancient tradition says it was Mark who laid the foundation of the church in Alexandria, which became one of the 5 most important & influential churches of the first Centuries. A theological school flourished in Alexandria from the 2nd C in which the great church fathers Clement & Origen taught. From Alexandria, the Gospel spread South into Nubia (modern Sudan) & Ethiopia. At a council of Alexandria in 235, 20 African bishops attended from all over the Nile basin.During the 4th C, in a subject we'll treat more fully in a later episode, Egypt coughed up the Arian heresy, then quickly answered it with Athanasian orthodoxy. Egypt was the birthplace of monasticism as practiced by its earliest advocates, Antony & Pachomius. Monasticism then spread across the rest of the Christian world. But that's yet another subject for a couple later episodes.Christianity spread from Egypt across the rest of North Africa quickly. It helped that there were numerous Roman outposts reached by 3 or 4 days sailing from Italy. The faith spread rapidly over the fertile fields & burning sands of Mauritania & Numidia, taking root in Carthage. In 258 a synod of 87 bishops met there & just 50 yrs later the Donatists held a council of 270 bishops.It may be of interest to some listeners that the oldest Latin translation of the Bible, called the “Itala” & was the basis of Jerome's “Vulgate”, was produced in Africa for Africans, not in Rome for Romans, because the Christians there used Greek. Latin theology also wasn't born in Rome, but in Carthage. Tertullian was its father. Latin theology then grew in North Africa to find its zenith in the world of Augustine of Hippo, another North African city. The influence of Augustine simply cannot be overstated, as we'll see.After reaching Egypt, Nubia, Ethiopia, and a narrow band of North Africa, the Expansion of the Faith stalled. Whether or not it would have renewed its reach further South becomes moot in light of the Conquest of Islam in the 7th & 8th Cs.Tracking the expansion of the Faith into Europe, we pick up the report of the early church historian Eusebius who said by the middle of the 3rd C the Church at Rome had a bishop, 46 elders, 7 deacons with 7 assistants, 42 acolytes which we can think of as “interns,” 50 readers, exorcists, & ushers; & 1500 widows & poor who were under its care. From these numbers we guesstimate the actual membership of the Church at about 50,000 or 1/20th of the City's population. The strength of Christianity in Rome is confirmed by the enormous extent of the catacombs where Christians were buried.From Rome, the church spread to all the cities of Italy. The first Roman synod we know of was held in the mid-2nd C and had 12 bishops in attendance. A century later there were 60.An official persecution of the followers of Christ in Gaul in 177 shows the church had to already be there and large enough as to raise the concern of the authorities. The faith arrived in Gaul, not from Rome, but from Asia Minor. We know that because Irenæus, the bishop of Lyons, was a disciple of Polycarp of Smyrna & Irenaeus reported in to his peers in Asia Minor rather than to Rome. It wasn't till the middle of the 3rd C that Rome sent missionaries to Gaul. One of them was Dionysius who founded the first church at Paris, then died a martyr at Montmartre to become the patron saint of France.Spain was most likely reached with the Faith in the 2nd C. The Council of Elvira in 306 saw 19 bishops assemble to catch up and discuss the work of their various provinces. The apostle Paul once formed the plan of a missionary journey to Spain, and according to Clement of Rome he did preach there.Irenæus reported that the Gospel had been preached to the Germans and several other Northern tribes but he likely meant just those portions of Northern Europe that had been brought under Roman control.Although it's a bit of a mystery why the North African Tertullian would know, he said the Faith had taken root in Britain by the end of the 2nd C. As we'll see in a later episode, the Celtic church existed in England, Ireland, & Scotland, quite independent of Rome, long before the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons by the Roman missionary Augustine. In fact, that early Celtic church sent missionaries to Germany, France, & the Low Countries well before the Italian outreach. In the mid-8th C, the Venerable Bede reported that about the year 167 the British king Lucius asked the bishop of Rome to send missionaries. Then, at the Council of Arles in 314, British bishops from York, London & Colchester, were in attendance.This would be a good place to talk about the Expansion of the Faith into the East but that's a huge, important, and all too often overlooked part of the History of the Church, so we'll save it for later. Suffice it for now – as many students of history know, the Roman Empire got stalled in the East, first by the Parthians, then later by their successors, the Sassanids.The Sassanids gladly applied the principle that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. And that meant from the late 2nd thru 3rd C, as Christians were being persecuted in the Roman Empire, they were welcomed to the East by the Sassanids. The church sprang up and grew rapidly all over Mesopotamia & Persia in what today we know as Iran. Some of the greatest cultural achievements of the Faith during the 3rd C were in this Persian church. But when Constantine embraced Christianity and the Church moved into the position of political favor in the Roman west, you may guess what that meant for the Church in the regions controlled by the Sassanids. Still, this eastern church had developed its own unique culture, and instead of moving back west to join the church of the Byzantine-Roman world, persecution pushed it even further east, all the way to China.Let's finish out this episode with a look at Justin Martyr who we began with a quote from.Justin was born in the ancient city of Shechem in the very center of Israel. But by the time he was born in AD 100, it was a Roman city called Flavia Neapolis = New Flavianberg. Raised by pagan parents, he sought life's meaning in the major philosophies of his day. But his pursuit of truth resulted in nothing more than a series of bitter disappointments.Justin was too sharp to swallow the shallow reasoning & logical inconsistencies of pagan thought. Whether it was religion or philosophy, his keen intellect cut through the silliness that was the hallmark of the pagan worldview.His first teacher was a Stoic who “knew nothing of God and did not even think knowledge of him to be necessary.” After that Justin followed an itinerant philosopher, who was more interested in collecting his fee than the pursuit of truth. Next up was a Pythagorean, but his course in music, astronomy, and geometry was too slow for Justin's voracious mind. Finally, he applied himself to Platonism which was more intellectually demanding, but proved once again to hold too many inconsistencies.Then, at about the age of 30, after a long conversation with an elderly gentleman, Justin's life was transformed. He said, “A fire was suddenly kindled in my soul. I fell in love with the prophets and these men who had loved Christ; I reflected on all their words and found that this philosophy alone was true and profitable. That is how and why I became a philosopher. And I wish that everyone felt the same way that I do.”Justin was determined to reconcile faith & reason. His work took him first to Ephesus in AD 132 where he held a debate with a Jew named Trypho about the correct way to interpret Scripture. The book which came out of this debate is aptly titled, The Dialogue with Trypho & teaches 3 main points:1) The Old Covenant has passed away to make place for the New;2) The Logos is the God of the Old Testament; AND à3) Believers in Christ constitute a New Israel; that is, the new covenant people of God.Justin then moved to Rome, founded a school, and wrote 2 bold Apologias = formal defenses of the Faith, intended to be read by pagan officials persecuting Christians. Think of an Apologia like a legal brief.Justin's First Apology published in 155 was addressed to Emperor Antoninus Pius. It was an attempt to explain the Faith, which as we saw in an earlier episode was so badly misunderstood by unbelieves of that time. Justin showed how Christianity was not a threat to the State and should be treated as a legal religion.He reasoned with the Emperor that Christians are his “best helpers and allies in securing good order, convinced as we are that no wicked man … can be hidden from God, and that everyone goes to eternal punishment or salvation in accordance with the character of his actions.” He made an eloquent case for why Christianity was superior to paganism, that Christ fulfilled prophecy, and that paganism was in reality a poor imitation of true religion.Justin's First Apology has become an important record for students of history in that he gave a detailed description of early Christian worship to prove to unbelievers the Faith wasn't some kind of subversive movement. The most famous passage is this:On the day called Sunday there is a gathering together in the same place of all who live in a given city or rural district. The memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits. Then when the reader ceases, the president in a discourse admonishes and urges the imitation of these good things. Next we all rise together and send up prayers.When we cease from our prayer, bread is presented and wine and water. The president in the same manner sends up prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people sing out their assent, saying the ‘Amen.' A distribution and participation of the elements for which thanks have been given is made to each person, and to those who are not present they are sent by the deacons.Those who have means and are willing, each according to his own choice, gives what he wills, and what is collected is deposited with the president. He provides for the orphans and widows, those who are in need on account of sickness or some other cause, those who are in bonds, strangers who are sojourning, and in a word he becomes the protector of all who are in need.Justin's Second Apology was written soon after Marcus Aurelius became emperor in 161. In these writings, Justin showed that the Christian faith alone as genuinely rational. He said the Logos; which was an important philosophical concept of the time, became incarnate to teach humanity truth and to redeem people from spiritual deception. Since Marcus Aurelius was a true philosopher Emperor, Justin sought to appeal to his love of truth with this Second Apology.But the Emperor was more enamored of Greek thought than the new-fangled innovations of the Christians. 4 yrs after penning the Second Apology, Justin and his disciples were arrested. The prefect asked him to denounce his faith by making a sacrifice to the gods. Justin replied, “No one who is rightly minded turns from true belief to false.” It was an easy answer for Justin because he'd spent his adult life discerning the true from the false.He was taken out and beheaded. Since he gave his life for “true philosophy,” Justin was surnamed Martyr.
This week's episode is titled “Hermits.”A few episodes back when I introduced Athanasius, I mentioned the religious hermits he visited in the wilderness near Alexandria in Egypt, bringing them food. As a young man, Athanasius honored these men who'd forsaken the ease of city life to pursue an undistracted but difficult life of devotion to God.Who were these hermits, and what moved them to such a radical departure from the lifestyle modeled by Jesus and the Apostles?While the theology of monks & monasteries evolved over many generations, its earliest foundation rested on the example of John the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ who was something of an ascetic. His normal haunt was the Judean wilderness where it intersected the Jordan River. He wore a less than a fashion-conscious wardrobe and ate a strict organic diet grudgingly provided by the wilderness.The earliest hermits put great weight in Jesus's counsel to the rich young ruler to sell his possessions, giving it all to the poor, & following the Lord. They embraced the New Testament's frequent idiom that the flesh is in a battle with the spirit & vice versa. They concluded flesh & spirit are irreconcilable. Hermits literally renounced the world by leaving the cultured life of the city to live in a primitive setting in the wilderness. This lifestyle of deprivation and discomfort was regarded as the truest route to unhindered communion with God by the hermits and a growing number of their admirers.The first time we see a written expression of this emerging mindset is in the Shepherd of Hermas about AD 140. This early Christian document defines a higher & lower route believers can take in their devotion to God. Faith, hope, & love are the lower route required of all Christians. But for those who aspire to closer intimacy with God, self-denial is required. This denial of the self took many forms with celibacy & renouncing marriage one of the more radical, yet popular.The practice of penance became common with believers moved to dramatic acts of charity and bravery in order to prove their devotion to God. When persecution was a frequent threat, Christians used penance as a way to compensate for moments of weakness & fear. And of course, the martyrs were luminous heroes even some pagans admired! But with the repeal of persecution, the Church needed new heroes & found them in the hermits who engaged in extreme acts of self-denial.The earliest monks were hermits; individuals who took refuge in the desert, hinting at where they got their start; in Egypt, where the desert is plentiful outside the fertile strip of land along the Nile. The word or hermit comes from the Greek word for desert.About AD 250, a 20-year-old named Anthony took Jesus' command to the rich young ruler to sell his possessions & follow him -- literally. Anthony sold everything & went to live in an abandoned tomb. Legends quickly grew up about his battles with temptation that took visible form in attacks by demons, seductive women, & wild beasts. Anthony emerged from each battle with a greater sense of devotion to God that inspired others to follow his ascetic example. Soon, hundreds made their way to the wilderness to pursue a life of rigid self-denial. Anthony was Athanasius' favorite. Since Anthony lived to be over a hundred, he was alive when the future bishop of Alexandria was taking supplies to the desert monks. Athanasius wrote a biography of Anthony, which became widely popular. This book, more than any other factor helped boost the esteem & appeal of the hermetic life.Monasticism grew apace with the new-found imperial favor under Constantine and his successors. It's not difficult understanding why the number of ascetics jumped & monasticism became popular at the same time the Church & State were buddying up. Being a Christian was no longer dangerous, so the sincerity of many new members declined. When people realized belonging to a church was a social & political plus, the sincerity factor dipped even further. Genuine believers noted the sagging quality of faith among so many of the church's fair-weather friends & chose responded by embracing a more rigorous path. The models of that era were the monks; those standout Christian heroes who'd attained an honor similar to that given the martyrs of the previous era-and hey! I don't have to get my head chopped off. Cool.So the monks of this time weren't so much fleeing the world as they were protesting a worldly church.Part and parcel of the hermetic life was an isolated individualism that stands in contrast to the communal life modeled by Jesus and the Apostles and urged in the New Testament. You don't have much of a Body of Christ when it's just one guy in a cave. Hermits found refuge in the wilderness an easy way to avoid the temptations of the external world but what of the far more dangerous inner temptations of the soul = things like pride & envy?The temptation to pride is obvious. After all, it was easy for the desert ascetics who'd taken the supposed “higher path” to consider themselves better than others. But how could envy be a problem when they lived alone? Well, they lived alone but they had plenty of visitors. Pilgrims made their way out to meet them and catch a few moments with those considered living saints. As these pilgrims made the rounds of several hermits, they reported to each hermit the extreme acts of penance and piety of the others. Not wanting to be outdone in a show of devotion, hermits endeavored to outdo each other. They went on extreme fasts, ate bizarre foods, lived in trees, on tops of pillars, & refused to bathe. As their acts became more bizarre, their fame grew & soon thousands flocked to see them. One hermit named Simon Stylites was so put out by the crowds who came to see him, he erected a pillar he lived on the top of for 30 years. People sent up food via a rope & basket.As with any extreme, it didn't take long before a calmer and more reasoned way challenged the decidedly non-biblical ultra-individualism of the desert hermits. About AD 320, someone remembered Genesis 2:18 à People shouldn't be alone. Hey, maybe these hermits we've made into living saints aren't really hitting the mark after all.An ex-soldier named the Pachomius formed the first monastery. It was a place where Christians could pursue devotion to God in a communal setting. Instead of each monk deciding for himself how to live and what to do, drawing on his experience as a soldier, Pachomius set rules for the community. All members wore the same uniform, engaged in similar manual labor, and kept the same schedule.While Pachomius' monastery was the first we know of for men, women already had their own version of communal life. This had been necessary since women were not allowed to be hermits. Their isolation would've made them a tempting target for criminals and brutes. Nonnus is the feminine form of the word monk so the women who pursued the communal life were called nuns; their cloistered commune was a convent.The monastic movement spread north out of Egypt into Syria, then West into Asia Minor which at that time was the most spiritually dynamic region of the Faith. Once monasteries took root in Asia Minor they spread rapidly across Europe.When Athanasius died in the Spring of 373, 3 bishops from Cappadocia in Asia Minor picked up and continued to carry the standard of loyalty to the Nicaean Creed. Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa. These 3 greatly promoted the monastic movement. Basil was especially important as he authored the Rule of Discipline that framed monastic life for generations after and does to this day in the Eastern Orthodox Church.Throughout the 4th & 5th Centuries, monasticism gained popularity and infiltrated every level of society. The communal life of the monks re-infused the Church with a sense of purpose and a return to the piety that had marked the Church's early years. Martyrdom was replaced by a whole-hearted devotion to God thru renouncing a career of worldly success in favor of one lived in the imitation of Christ. In order to obtain this ideal within the context of communal life, monks took vows of obedience, poverty, & chastity. These were attempts to limit the battle-line of temptation and sin by renouncing possessions, self-will, & the sexual urge. Monasteries helped put an end to the problems common to the earlier hermits: idleness & eccentricity. They became centers of social renewal & scholarship. By the 6th Century, most church leaders were monks.One of the most notable monks from this period was Jerome, who lived from about 340 to 420. He began as a hermit in the Syrian wilderness. Despite best intentions, Jerome was plagued by sexual temptation. The only relief he could find was when his mind was preoccupied by an overwhelming intellectual challenge. Someone suggested he learn Hebrew which proved to be an effective prescription against temptation. Once he'd mastered Hebrew, he traveled to Rome where he became the tutor of one of a leading bishops and met a couple brilliant women who under his training became as skilled as he in teaching the Bible.When Jerome fell out with some other monks at Rome, he moved to a monastery at Bethlehem where he spent the next 22 years translating the Old & New Testaments into Latin.At first Jerome's translation was criticized because he used the street-language of his day rather than the more refined classical Latin of antiquity. People considered his Bible vulgar but it didn't take long before opinions changed & the Latin Vulgate was widely and wildly popular. The Roman Catholic Church used the Latin Vulgate as their official Bible until recent time.The man who had the most significant impact on monastic life was Benedict of Nursia not far from of Rome. Benedict was educated in the capital but when he was exposed to the extreme asceticism of the hermits, cut short his schooling in favor of a solitary life in a cave 80 miles south. He spent 3 years studying the Scriptures when local monks came for a visit. Impressed with his learning, they asked if he'd be their abbot, a monastery's leader. He agreed, but when the discipline he required proved too rigorous, they tried to poison him. He fled. Benedict took little more with him than a wisdom born of failure. Instead of chalking up his ouster from the monastery as a sign he wasn't cut out to lead, he refined his ideas on how to conduct community and began a new monastery at Monte Cassino south of Rome in 529. When Benedict died 13 years later he left behind a pattern for monastic life that became the standard for hundreds of monasteries and helped safeguard European civilization during the intellectual declension of the Middle Ages; something we'll return in a later episode.It was at and for the Monte Cassino monastery Benedict wrote his famous "Rule." The Rule was a brilliant merging of pragmatism and psychology. Benedict had learned how to administrate a commune of believers to enforce necessary discipline without being harsh. He began by taking the basic monastic forms already in place, then installed a system of discipline that weeded out the lazy and insincere. He knew the only way to accomplish the aims of a monastery was by maintaining authority and discipline, but the required obedience had to be such that an ordinary person could give. Benedict failed in his earlier attempt because he'd expected the monks to follow his own level of discipline, which he realized was greater than all but a few could emulate.Benedict's Rule established the role of the monastery's abbot as sole-authority to whom the monks owed unwavering and unquestioned obedience. But this authority couldn't be arbitrary, so he made the selection of the abbot a choice for the monks themselves. His rule for the abbot was that any major decision must be made after consulting the monks for guidance. He warned that going against their counsel was both unwise and unsafe. He cautioned abbots against an unchecked exercise of power.In a move that seems prescient, Benedict advocated each monastery become a world unto itself. Work of both a manual & mental nature was seen as crucial to monastic life and central to devotion to God. So each monastery became a self-supporting community, dependent on the outside world for little. What this meant was that as the Roman Empire dissolved, the scholarship of the ancient world was preserved in the Benedictine monasteries where it was read, studied, & copied for generations. They became the storehouses for the knowledge that would reemerge in the Reformation & Renaissance, lifting Europe out of the Middle Ages.As we end this episode, here are some lines from the Rule of St. Benedict.The first degree of humility is prompt obedience.Idleness is the enemy of the soul; and therefore the brethren ought to be employed in manual labor at certain times. At others, in devout reading.The sleepy like to make excuses.The abbot ought ever to bear in mind what he is and what he is called; he ought to know that to whom more is entrusted, from him more is exacted.He should know that whoever undertakes the government of souls must prepare himself to account for them. To both casual listeners and subscribers of CS, thanks for joining us.If you haven't done so yet, please drop by the Facebook page and give it a “like.” If you access CS through iTunes, please rate the podcast and leave a review. Thanks.
This episode of CS is titled, “And to the South . . . ” -- We move aside now from our review of the Reformation in Europe to get caught up with what's happening in Africa.In many, maybe most, popular treatments of Church history, the emphasis is on what's going on in Europe. That's what most church-based Christian history courses and many western colleges and seminaries focus on. We've already devoted several podcasts to the Church in Asia, both the Eastern or Greek Orthodox church, as well as what's called “THE Church IN the East,” AKA the Syrian, sometimes and the Nestorian Church.We'll soon jump the Atlantic to take a look at the Church in the New World. But before we do, we shift our attention south, to Africa.As we've seen, North Africa was one of the formative cradles of Christianity. That's where Tertullian, Cyprian and Augustine, 3 of the great Latin Fathers of the Faith kicked it. The Church at Alexandria was 1 of the 4 main churches in the early centuries. Egypt was highly influential in defining what the Faith looked like throughout much of Christendom because of men like Antony and Pachomius; the “desert fathers.” Their strict asceticism is credited with forming the early picture of what popular, but not necessarily Biblical, holiness looked like and which framed the thinking of Christians for hundreds of years. It led in large part to monasticism.In this episode, we'll track the course of Christianity as it made its way across the African continent.The genesis of Ethiopian Christianity rests in Acts 8 where a deacon in the Jerusalem church named Philip was used by God to lead an Ethiopian eunuch and royal treasurer to Faith in Christ. There's no record of what impact this man had when he returned home, but the fact he made a special trip to Jerusalem in the 1st C reinforces the idea that there was already a Jewish-influenced community in Ethiopia. Like so many of the Jews scattered around the world, meeting in local synagogues, these were prime candidates for the preaching of the Gospel because Jesus was indeed the Jewish Messiah. The Book of Acts shows us it was among God-fearing Gentiles who attended synagogues that the Gospel found it most receptive audience. So it's likely when the Ethiopian eunuch returned home, he shared what he'd learned and a church was birthed. But not nurtured by apostolic leadership in Jerusalem, it went into decline. Before doing so, it may have left some seeds behind waiting for a later watering.The best record we have attaches the planting of the church in Ethiopia to a slave named Frumentius around ad 300. Frumentius was on a trading voyage when he was captured by pirates and sold to the king of Axum. He proved of such service to the king, he was granted his freedom 40 years later. He immediately went to Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, telling him of Ethiopia's need of missionary activity. Athanasius consecrated Frumentius as bishop of Axum. Thus began a long tradition, in which Ethiopian Orthodoxy looked to Alexandria and later, the Egyptian Coptic church to appoint its leaders. This continued all the up to 1959.Frumentius's pioneering work was furthered by what are known as the Nine Saints from Syria who arrived about 150 years after Frumentius. Their work saw Ethiopia become a Christian kingdom. The government remained focused on a Christian monarch in several periods of upheaval thru the centuries, till the reign of Haile Selassie in the 20th C.There are characteristics of Ethiopian Christianity that deserve notice. It was an extremely Jewish form of Christian tradition and for long periods observed a Saturday-Sabbath rather than Sunday as the day of worship. It shared with the Falasha Jews of Ethiopia a great respect for the history of King Solomon and his visitor, the Queen of Sheba. They bore a tenacious legend that, after their meeting, the Ark of the Covenant was removed from Jerusalem and taken to Ethiopia where it was stored in secret. Various reasons were given for this; most notably that as Solomon began his slide into apostasy, a faithful priest recognized the day would come when foreigners would destroy the temple. To preserve the ark, a duplicate was made, switched out with the real ark, which was then packed off for safe-keeping to Ethiopia. This led to the production of multitudes of miniature ‘arks', called ‘tabot', displayed in places of Christian worship. The Ethiopian account of the royal meeting between Solomon and the Queen of Sheba is a document called the Kebra Nagast, which dates to the early 6th C. Ethiopian Christians considered themselves Christian-Jews. They retain the practice of circumcision alongside baptism. Monarchs regard their dynasty as from Solomon. One of Haile Selassie's titles was ‘Lion of Judah'.Like the Egyptian church it's derived from, the Ethiopian church has a strong monastic tradition. The Nine Saints founded a number of communities around Axum; places like Dabra Damo, which lasted 1,000 years. Around 1270, the famous monastery Dabra Libanos became a center of renewal. Axum had a large, 5-aisled cathedral destroyed by Muslims in the 16th C. At that point, the whole kingdom would have become permanently Muslim had it not been for Portuguese military assistance in a decisive battle of 1543.Much credit for the survival of the Ethiopian church goes to their ancient translation of the Bible into Ge'ez [Gee-ehz]; a musical worship tradition practiced by the laity. Over the centuries different Christian groups have rallied to their aid to assist them against oppressors. Despite their appreciation, the Ethiopian church has resisted attempts to align themselves with any outside group. Estimates are that the Ethiopian Orthodox church has about 45 million members today and is the majority religious group. The 12th and 13th C rock-cut churches of the Lalibela region still delight tourists with the uniqueness of their architecture and the improbability of their construction.The survival of the church in Ethiopia underlines the tragic fate of the Church next door in ancient Nubia, or what today we know as the Sudan. Nubia possessed a flourishing Christian kingdom from the 8th to 12th C. Centered at the capital of Khartoum, Nubian bishops, like their Ethiopian peers, were consecrated by the patriarch of Alexandria. When a Muslim king ascended the throne, it spelled the end of Nubian Christianity. Best evidence suggests the church in Nubia began as a mission sent out by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian and his wife Theodora in 543. By 580 the entire population were followers of Jesus. But by 1500, the entire region was Muslim and what had been a flourishing church disappeared. In the 1960s, prior to the flooding of northern Sudan for the Aswan dam, excavations revealed the rich remains of Nubian churches.Remember now back to your world history class in your freshman or sophomore year of High School à What ethnic and national group sailed down the west coast of Africa, looking for a way to get to the rich trading ports of the Indian Ocean?Right. The Portuguese. Their progress down the west coast of Africa resulted in trading centers at Elmina on the Gold Coast, modern day Ghana, in 1482 and expeditions up the River Zaire in 1483-7. An expedition in 1491 saw a local king named Mbanza Congo, baptized and renamed as Joao I [joe-ow], after the reigning Portuguese king Joao II; Joao is Portuguese for John.Following King Congo's conversion, the Christianization of the region continued under his successor, King Mvemba Nzinga, renamed Afonso. He made Christianity the religion of the nobility, taking titles like ‘marquise' from the Portuguese aristocracy. Afonso's son, Henrique, was sent to Lisbon for education and was made a bishop in 1521. Unfortunately, he died not long after his return to Africa in 1530.King Afonso made regular appeals to the Portuguese for assistance in establishing the Christian faith from 1514 onwards. A Portuguese priest of the time left a vivid portrait of Afonso, still regarded in the Congo as the ‘Apostle of the Congo'. He was a skillful preacher who established a tradition of royal preaching. By all reports, this Congolese king was a genuine Billy Graham to his time and people.Now that's a very Western-centric way to put it, isn't it? IT would be just as accurate to say Billy Graham was an American King Afonso, or even better, an American Mvemba Nzinga.After Afonso's death in 1543, the story of the Congo is one of missed opportunities. Though he made frequent appeals for missionaries to come and work in Africa, the contest between Spain and Portugal stalled their efforts. Since the Jesuits were international, they arrived in the capital of Sao Salvador and opened a seminary in 1624. A Congolese ambassador visited Pope Paul V in 1608, an event commemorated in a Vatican fresco.A minor order of the Franciscans called the Capuchins tried to carry on outreach to the Congo, but conditions were brutal and many died. By 1700, Christianity was fading from the region. It wasn't until Baptist missionaries arrived in the 19th C that things picked up once more.By the late 18th C, the slave-trade from West Africa to the New World ran into the thousands. After the successful campaign for abolition led by William Wilberforce, with the help of a remarkable African in England, Olaudah Equiano, a British naval squadron patrolled the coast from 1807 searching for slavers. But the Portuguese still exported thousands across the Atlantic to the slave fields of Brazil, as the English had done to the sugar plantations of the West Indies by the notorious ‘middle passage.'Sierra Leone became a dumping ground for the British Navy's spoils from captured slavers. The Church Missionary Society, founded in 1799, set to work providing relief and evangelism for ex-slaves. By 1860, 60,000 freed slaves were dropped off at Freetown. But uprooted from their tribal structures and unable to return to their homes, they were gradually settled in what in many cases became model Christian villages.Among the arrivals in Sierra Leone was a group of 1200 freed American slaves. These had organized themselves into 15 ships at Halifax, Nova Scotia, and arrived singing hymns as they came ashore with their Baptist, Methodist, and other pastors. In time, Methodist life was greatly strengthened by the arrival from England of Thomas Birch Freeman, the son of an African father and English mother. Being of African descent, Freeman was able to survive the West African climate, fatal for European missionaries, and gave long service in West Africa.Eventually, some of the repatriated Africans of Sierra Leone caught the vision of returning to their tribes with the Gospel. Among them was Samuel Crowther. Crowther had been liberated from a Portuguese slaver in 1821. He was one of the first students at the new missionary college at Fourah Bay. He became a missionary to his branch of the Yoruba tribe in the 1830s, at the same time translating books of the NT. Crowther was part of a growing trend in missions; that of planting indigenous churches that were self-supporting, self-governing ,and self-extending.Johannes van der Kemp helped found the Netherlands Missionary Society. A retired soldier, he became a doctor before arriving in Cape Town, South Africa in 1799. His arrival among the Boers was like a match lit to a powder-keg. The Boers were Dutch farmers of South Africa who tried to maintain their distance from the British and constant conflict with local tribes.Van der Kemp was brilliant and upset the conservative-minded Boers with his marriage to a Malagasy slave girl, to say nothing of his virulent opposition to slavery and the oppression of Africans. He immediately went to work bringing the Gospel to South Africans and showed a special care for those displaced by armed conflict.Arriving in Cape Town from England at this time was Robert Moffatt whose style of mission work was very different from that of the indigenous designs of Crowther and his European friends. Moffat's philosophy of missions was more old-school. He built a mission compound which sought to preserve a little slice of England inside its fence. Africans were then invited to come TO the missionaries for preaching and teaching of a European-brand of Christianity. He gave 50 years to the mission north of the Orange River.This was where the famous Scottish missionary David Livingstone spent his first years after arriving in Africa. Livingstone married Moffat's daughter Mary; and Moffatt guided Livingstone in his early years in the field.Livingstone became a physician in Glasgow in 1840 and arrived in Cape Town in 1841. His and Mary's first child died in 1846. They lost another 4 years later. In 1852, Mary took their other children back to Scotland, but this proved a bad move. She moved in with David's parents. >> In-laws, you know how it goes! Well, things didn't go well and Mary began tipping the bottle in her loneliness. After Livingstone's epic journeys of 1853–56 thru the interior of Africa and his triumphant reception back home, they were reunited. Mary accompanied him on his Zambezi expedition of 1858, but died. Livingstone's eldest son, Robert, also died in 1864 as a soldier in the Union cause of the American Civil War. Though Scottish, Robert Livingstone joined the Union Army to help the cause of abolition; a value he learned from his courageous and monumentally giving father. As you know, David Livingstone was found by the explorer H.M. Stanley in 1871 and died in May 1873. His funeral, paid for by the British government, was held in Westminster Abbey on April 18, 1874, with 2 royal carriages for the family, who included Moffatt, 2 of Livingstone's sons, and his daughter, to whom he'd been particularly close in his last years.Livingstone spent his first 11 years at the Moffatt mission-station but felt that style of mission work wasn't effective. He conceived his plan of exploration, which took him west to the Loanda coast of Angola, then east to the mouth of the Zambezi.You've likely heard the story, true it turns out, that the Africans came to love Livingstone so intensely, because they knew he loved them so much, that when he died, they consented to allow his body to return to his native Scotland, but claimed his heart for Africa.While there were scattered attempts to take the Gospel into East Africa throughout the centuries, nothing ever really took hold. It wasn't till Protestant missionaries of the 19th C arrived that a consistent work began. Then the church began to grow in Kenya and Uganda. But Protestants weren't the only ones bringing the Gospel to East Africa. The Roman Catholic archbishop of Algiers, Charles Lavigerie founded the Missionaries of Our Lady of Africa, known as the White Fathers. A group arrived in Uganda in 1878. This brought a wave of conversions and an outbreak of violence between competing groups of Muslims, Catholics, and Anglicans. Infrequent but brutal atrocities moved the British to send in troops to quell the disturbances and the region became a British protectorate in 1893. The colonial period that followed was a time of mass response to Christianity in the country.
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