Commontide
Liturgical Color: White/Gold
The 5th Sunday of Easter
Almighty God, whom truly to know is everlasting life: Grant us so perfectly to know your Son Jesus Christ to be the way, the truth, and the life, that we may steadfastly follow his steps in the way that leads to eternal glory; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Easter
But chiefly are we bound to praise you for the glorious resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; for he is the true Paschal Lamb, who was offered for us, and has taken away the sin of the world; who by his death has destroyed death, and by his rising to life again has won for us everlasting life.
Most liturgical texts are from the Book of Common Prayer (2019) of the Anglican Church in North America.
The New Coverdale Psalter, © 2019 by the Anglican Church in North America. Used by permission.
The 6th of Easter (Rogation Sunday)
Abbot and Organizer of Monasticism
Ecumenical Commemoration
Pachomius (c. 292 to c. 346) was an Egyptian monk of the Thebaid who founded the first organized communal monastery, at Tabennese on the Nile. Converted after Christians brought food to the conscripts he was held with, and trained seven years by the hermit Palamon, he gave the monastic life a written rule, shared work, common meals, and a house that could hold thousands. By his death the federation counted nine monasteries for men and two for women. His feast is May 15; his own Coptic church keeps him on May 9.
Pachomius was born around 292 in the Thebaid, Upper Egypt. Conscripted into the Roman army as a young man, he was moved by the charity of Christians who brought food and water to exhausted soldiers during a march. After his discharge, he sought baptism and apprenticed himself to the hermit Palamon, living in the desert with only bread and salt.
Around 323, Pachomius established a new form of monastic life at Tabennisi on the Nile. Rather than solitary asceticism, he organized monks into a common life with a written rule governing every detail: hours of prayer, schedules of meals and fasting, assignment of work, structure of authority. Monks lived in houses of roughly twenty, each house devoted to a particular craft — weaving, baking, farming — and the entire community gathered for common worship.
Pachomius's genius lay in balancing ascetic rigor with practical realism. His Rule assumed monks needed structure, accountability, and graduated expectations. New monks were tested before admission; experienced monks received greater responsibility. The result was monastic life that could scale: by his death, his federation included eleven monasteries, several housing hundreds of monks each.
He composed the first written monastic rule — revolutionary for its systematization of communal life. Jerome translated the Rule into Latin around 404, and it became foundational for Western monasticism. Benedict of Nursia acknowledged Pachomian principles, and through Benedictine tradition, Pachomian monasticism shaped European civilization.
Pachomius died during a plague in 346. His successors expanded his federation, and his organizational vision became the dominant form of Christian monasticism.
Traditionally, Pachomius received the monastic rule from an angel who appeared bearing a bronze tablet inscribed with the regulations for common life. The Coptic Life recounts this vision as the origin of his rule-writing. Though hagiographically shaped, the tradition underscores the conviction that his organizational genius was divinely inspired.