But probably the deepest impact of Abba Pakhom on
Europe was that exercised on the Benedictine Order. St.
Benedict, the Italian saint, legislated the same laws
concerning obedience, labour and orderliness – in some
cases, almost word for word. And, as St. Benedict enjoyed
great prestige among the Latins, the Pakhomian teachings,
after which his were modelled, spread widely and rapidly.
From then onwards, Western monasticism took on a new
phase: a phase both spiritual and social in harmony with the
human mystical monasticism of St. Pakhom.
If we trace the Pakhomian influence even farther
down the centuries, we may say that among its results was
the rise of the Cistersian and Carthusian Orders during the
11 th and 12th centuries, and of the Franciscan and Dominican
Orders in the Thirteenth. These orders were ultimately
responsible for the rise of the Humanistic movement leading
to the institution of the universities. Thus, the movement
that was started by Abba Pakhom in Upper Egypt
reverberated in the great spiritual and intellectual movements
of Europe, and was the initial cause for raising in that same
continent those sanctuaries of learning and of science
wherein were preserved the noblest creations of human
thought.^31
F. 205. Theodorus was a blessed youth indeed, full of
the gifts of the Holy Spirit. At the age of twelve he began to
show his inclination towards the meditative, worshipful life.
His parents watched him half-concerned, half-happy,
convinced that he was spiritually attuned in a very special
way. Yet they deemed him too young for such spiritual
soaring. When, for two years, he persisted in is meditation
and his ascetism, they complied with his ardent desire to be a
monk. Thereupon, he went to Latopolis where he met
Pecusius – a venerable old monk – who took him to the