Lance Jenott, "Clergy, Clairvoyance, and Conflict: The Synod of Latopolis and the Problem with Pachomius’ Visions"

Jenott discusses political reasons for why Apa Pachomius, the famous fourth-century Egyptian abbot, was summoned to an ecclesiastical court by local bishops in order to explain his supernatural gift of spiritual discernment. Through a careful comparison of the different stories told in the Coptic, Greek and Arabic biographies of Pachomius, Jenott argues that it was not his spiritual powers per se that were suspect, but the fact that he appealed to direct revelations from God to justify the expansion of his monastic federation into new territories where it was not always welcome.