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What is an essential and decisive motivation of founding Pachmian koinonia? I have discussed this important but difficult question. I found an important clue in the accounts of Pachomius's conversion amongst the various sources, especially The Bohairic Life and The First Greek Life. When he was conscripted, Pachomius witnessed local Christians’charity toward strangers, which perhaps he had never experienced before. From this strong impression, he decided to be a Christian and swore to God that "I will serve your will all the days of my life and, loving all men, I will be their servant according to your command." The Lives presents how Pachomius came to fulfill his own promise after his conversion. However, The Lives never says that the process of practicing his vow did not follow a clear blueprint but rather emerged from Pachomius's continuous search for God and his spiritual growth. In such an interior process, the encounter with his spiritual father, Palamon, is very important. Only after the ascetic training he had under Palamon did Pachomius finally find the fact that the true meaning of serving all human beings is to lead them into spiritual growth, that is, the achievement of the purity of their souls and their consequent reconciliation to God. Such realization brings Pachomius to build a specific monastery, a cenobitic one. For Pachomius, the monastery is regarded as the best place where whoever decided to be a monk could practice ascesis with others for the attainment of spiritual growth. In this way, his first promise of becoming a servant for all men is being clarified as building a larger koinonia for all men who want to be monks. On the basis of much meandering, the first koinonia was founded at Tabennesi. To be sure, The Lives shows that the foundation of the monastery was never the end of Pachomius's ideal of Christian charity. His devotional love toward his disciples came to be a decisive model of keeping the koinonia. Finally, mutual love and concern are the foundational principles by which Pachomius's ideal was gradually achieved in the monastery. Through the Lives of Pachomius, one finds a man who, throughout his whole life, continuously struggled to follow the essential doctrine of Christianity, love your neighbor as yourself.
