Zachariah the Recluse
Our Venerable Father Zachariah the Recluse
Venerable · d. c. 4th–5th century
Commemorated 24 March — Commemoration of the recluse and faster
Zachariah was a monk of the Egyptian (or, in some notices, the Palestinian) desert who gave himself to strict enclosure, fasting and unceasing prayer, and by long labour attained to great purity and the vision of God. He is honoured among the ascetic fathers on the forefeast of the Annunciation.
The surviving notice of Zachariah is brief, in the manner of the desert synaxarion. From his youth he embraced the monastic life and, seeking the deepest stillness (hesychia), shut himself away as a recluse, that nothing might come between his soul and God. He kept a rigorous fast, ate the least that would sustain life, and passed his days and nights in prayer and the reading of the Scriptures. By this discipline he was purified of the passions and, the tradition says, was granted a foretaste of the divine light. Having finished his course in this hidden warfare, he reposed in peace and was numbered among the venerable fathers. (The Sayings of the Desert Fathers preserve a "Zachariah" among the disciples of Abba Carion and Abba Moses; whether he is the same as the recluse of this day is not certain.)
Feast and commemoration
March 24 (church date; Old Calendar civil April 6), the forefeast of the Annunciation, within Great Lent, kept with the festal office of the forefeast.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 8 (common of a venerable ascetic)
By a flood of tears thou didst make the barren desert fruitful, and thy longing for God brought forth fruit a hundredfold; thou becamest a shining lamp, illumining the whole world by thy miracles, O Zachariah our father. Intercede with Christ God that our souls may be saved.
Original translation from the Greek
Iconography
Zachariah is shown as an aged monk in the schema, gaunt with fasting, holding a scroll. No pre-1900 icon of him alone has been identified for this collection.