Petronius of Egypt

Petronius of Egypt was a fourth-century monastic of the Pachomian community, remembered as a disciple of Saint Pachomius the Great whom Pachomius designated as his successor over the federation of monasteries he had founded. He is commemorated in the Orthodox calendar on September 4. Before entering the monastic life he came from a landed family of the Thebaid; by tradition he converted his family estate into a monastery and brought it into the communal life that Pachomius had organized.

According to the Pachomian tradition, Petronius was born at Pjoj, a town in the district of Diospolis Parva. His father Pshenthbo and his brother Pshenapalhi are recorded as having later converted and themselves entered Pachomian monasteries as monks. Petronius built the monastery of Tbew out of his family's holdings and requested that Pachomius admit it into the Koinonia, the federation of houses under a single communal rule. Within the federation he served as superior of Tsmine and oversaw further communities, among them Smin and Tse.

When Pachomius lay dying, he appointed Petronius to lead the Koinonia after him. Petronius held this charge only briefly; the tradition relates that he died within a few months of his teacher and was succeeded in the governance of the monasteries by Horsiesius. His short tenure places him at the head of one of the earliest organized communal monastic movements in Christian history, the system whose written rule would later influence Western monasticism through Saint Benedict.