Patronage

Patron Saint of Monastic communities

2 saints are venerated as patrons of Monastic communities, led by Pachomius the Great (feast day May 9).

Pachomius the Great

Approx. 292 AD — May 9, 348 AD · Feast day: May 9

Born pagan near Luxor around 292, Pachomius was conscripted into Rome's army at twenty-one, where Christians' unprompted kindness to soldiers changed him. Baptized in 314, he withdrew to the desert under the hermit Palamon, then founded the first cenobitic monastery at Tabennisi around 318–323. By his death in 348 — contracting plague while nursing the sick — he had built eleven monasteries sheltering over 7,000 monks and nuns.

Full biography

Sophrony (Sakharov)

September 23, 1896 AD — July 11, 1993 AD · Feast day: July 11

Born into pre-revolutionary Moscow, Sophrony Sakharov abandoned a promising career as a painter to become a monk on Mount Athos — where, under St. Silouan the Athonite, he discovered that 'to acquire Prayer is to acquire eternity.' He died in Essex in 1993 and was canonized by the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 2019.

Full biography

Related Patronages

Monks Those suffering from serious illness Orthodox Christians in the Western world