Tabenna

Tabenna is a Christian community founded in Upper Egypt around 320 by Saint Pachomius. It was the motherhouse of a federation of monasteries known as the Koinonia. At the time of Pachomius's death in 346, there were nine establishments for men and two for women, along with two or three thousand "Tabennesites". It is considered the first major model of cenobitic monasticism in early Christianity.

== Name and location == Tabenna (also Tabennae, Tabennisi, Tabennesi, Tabennese) is a Coptic name. The name and location of this monastery have long been the subject of great uncertainty. In the various manuscripts of the Lausiac History of Palladios (§ 32), the following Greek forms are found: Ταβέννησις, Ταβέννησος, Ταβενίσιος and Ταβένη. In Sozomene (III, 14), one manuscript gives (correctly) "έν Ταβεννήσῳ", but another incorrectly reads "έν Ταβέννη νήσῳ" in two words (with the word νῆσος, "island"). It is apparently this cacography that inspired Nikephoros Kallistos Xanthopoulos' (fl. 14th century) phrase: "ἔν τινι νήσῳ, ἣ Ταβέννη ώνόμαστο", "in a certain island called Tabenne". Hence comes the tradition according to which the monastery was installed on an island, which in fact does not appear in any ancient document. In Coptic manuscripts, the forms are as follows: Tabennêsi (the most frequent), Tabênise, Tabnêse, Tabsinêse, Tabsênisi and others. In the Arabic texts: Tabanessin, Tafnis, Tafânis, Tafnasa, and also Dounasa are found. In Latin, the form Tabennen is found in the Latin Life of Pachomius by Dionysius Exiguus. As for the derivative designating the occupants of the place, in Greek it takes the forms Ταβεννησιώτης, Ταβινισιώτης, Ταβισιώτης; in Latin Tabennensis (with the usual suffix -ensis), Tabennesiota (tracing from Greek), Tabennensiota (mixture of the two).