Apollonius of Monchosis

Overview

Apollonius of Monchosis was the abbot of a monastery at Monchosis, remembered in The Coptic Encyclopedia for helping to produce a schism among the successors of Saint Pachomius over the handling of monastic properties. The brief notice identifies both his institutional position and the subject of the disagreement, rather than supplying a personal biography.¹

A fuller account of a related leadership crisis appears in the encyclopedia’s entry on Horsiesios, which names “a certain Apollonius, superior of Tmoushons” as the instigator of a strong movement of revolt. That account places the episode during Horsiesios’ first period as head of the Pachomian community and connects it directly with his withdrawal from leadership.²

History and origins

The succession after Pachomius

The institutional setting was the Pachomian Koinonia, defined in the account of Horsiesios as the congregation of all the monasteries founded by Pachomius. Leadership of this larger body was therefore distinct from the supervision of an individual monastery, such as that attributed to Apollonius at Monchosis or Tmoushons.¹²³

According to the account summarized in the encyclopedia, Pachomius asked Horsiesios, while he himself was dying, to discover whom the brothers wanted as their father. The older brothers preferred Theodorus of Tabennese but declined to name a candidate. Pachomius appointed Petronius, who was already ill; when Petronius died a few months later, he designated Horsiesios as his successor.³

Horsiesios’ appointment did not initially please the older brothers. He was a comparatively young member of the community, although Pachomius had previously made him superior of Sheneset, identified as Qasr al-Sayyad near Nag Hammadi. Even that earlier appointment had encountered opposition.³

This background matters because the revolt associated with Apollonius arose within a community that had already experienced unease over succession. The account nevertheless distinguishes the initial resistance to Horsiesios from the later crisis: it says that he won the brothers’ acceptance and that affairs proceeded well enough for several years before the revolt developed.²³

The revolt and Horsiesios’ withdrawal

The encyclopedia places the movement fomented by Apollonius after five years of Horsiesios’ leadership. It describes Apollonius as superior of Tmoushons and calls the opposition a “strong movement of revolt.” The shorter Monchosis notice supplies a more specific description of the issue, attributing the schism to the handling of monastic properties.¹²

Read together, the notices associate Apollonius with both a dispute about material administration and a breakdown in the acceptance of communal leadership. They do not, however, provide his own explanation of his position or describe the particular arrangements that he sought to change.¹²

Horsiesios responded by relinquishing his office. The account explains his decision in spiritual and communal terms: he had accepted leadership out of obedience, feared that souls might be lost because of him, and placed great importance on the unity of the Koinonia. After spending an entire night in prayer, he summoned the older brothers and announced that Theodorus would become their superior; he then retired to Sheneset.²

The narrative thus presents Horsiesios’ withdrawal not simply as a change of officeholders, but as an attempt to preserve unity in the face of opposition. Its explanation concerns Horsiesios’ motives; it does not establish Apollonius’ personal intentions beyond his reported role in fomenting the revolt.²

The subsequent leadership

Theodorus remained at the head of the Koinonia for eighteen years. Near the end of that period, tired and somewhat discouraged, he recalled Horsiesios to share his responsibilities. After Theodorus died in 368, Horsiesios again possessed what the Life called “his” rank.⁴

A separate account of the Letter of Ammon provides a chronological reference point for Theodorus’ leadership. Ammon entered the monastery of Pbow in 352, six years after Pachomius’ death, when Theodorus was already head of the community. This helps situate the succession described in the Horsiesios entry, without supplying a precise date for Apollonius’ actions.⁵

Monastic property and communal administration

The property dispute belonged to a monastic organization with an established system for administering the products of the brothers’ work and meeting their needs. The encyclopedia’s entry on Paphnutius of Pbow states that Pachomius established the general administration of the Koinonia at Pbow and appointed Paphnutius its first great steward.⁶

Paphnutius’ responsibilities were to receive the fruits of all the brothers’ labor and provide for all their needs. He was a younger brother of Theodorus of Tabennese and had entered the monastery of Tabennese a few years after him. Both Paphnutius and Pachomius died during the plague of 346, together with many of the older brothers.⁶

This administrative background explains why the handling of property was a matter affecting the wider community rather than merely an incidental concern of one monastery: the described system joined the brothers’ labor and their material support within a common administration. It does not establish which part of that system Apollonius contested, nor whether the dispute concerned ownership, distribution, supervision, or another aspect of management.¹⁶

The most specific characterization supported by the direct notice is therefore a schism over the handling of monastic properties. A more detailed account of rival economic policies or of Apollonius’ preferred form of government would go beyond the information supplied.¹

Sources, names, and terminology

Monchosis and Tmoushons

The two relevant encyclopedia notices use different place-names: the short listing calls Apollonius abbot of the monastery at Monchosis, while the entry on Horsiesios identifies the leader of the revolt as superior of Tmoushons. Their descriptions closely correspond in subject and institutional setting, but neither supplied passage explicitly explains the relationship between the two place-names.¹²

The term Koinonia is glossed as “community” in the entries on Ammon and Paphnutius of Pbow, while the Horsiesios entry explains its organizational extent as the congregation of Pachomius’ monasteries. These descriptions help distinguish the community-wide leadership of Horsiesios and Theodorus from the local superiority attributed to Apollonius.²³⁵⁶

The narrative witnesses

For the revolt, the Horsiesios entry cites section 139 of the Life of Pachomius known through its Bohairic version and fragmentary Sahidic manuscripts, abbreviated SBo, and section 128 of the first Greek Life, abbreviated G1. The encyclopedia therefore points to both Coptic and Greek narrative witnesses for the episode, although the supplied material gives their summary rather than their full texts.²³

Distinction from Apollonius of Nitria

The encyclopedia lists Apollonius of Monchosis separately from Apollonius of Nitrea, also indexed as Apollonius of Nitria. The latter is described as an ascetic in Wadi al-Natrun for twenty years who subsequently became a peddler to monks in Alexandria. Those details belong to that separate entry and should not be transferred to the superior associated with the Pachomian property dispute.⁷⁸