13th–14th centuries
A monk of the Kiev Caves renowned for extreme fasting, taking only uncooked greens once a day. Commemorated among the saints of the Near Caves.
Our Venerable Father Zachariah the Faster of the Kiev Caves
Zachariah the Ascetic, also called Zachariah the Faster, was a monk of the Kiev Caves Monastery in present-day Ukraine, reckoned by the synaxarion to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. He is remembered chiefly for the extreme severity of his fasting, and is numbered among the venerable fathers commemorated within the monastery's body of saints. His feast is kept on March 24.
According to the tradition recorded in the synaxarion, Zachariah ate nothing baked nor boiled, taking only uncooked greens, and even these only once a day at the setting of the sun. This regimen of perpetual abstinence is the defining feature of the accounts that survive about him and the source of his title "the Faster."
The sources relate that his ascetic life was attended by spiritual gifts: he is said often to have seen angels, and it is recorded that demons trembled at the mere mention of his name. Beyond these notices and the memory of his fasting, little biographical detail about his life has been preserved.
By a flood of tears you made the desert fertile,
and your longing for God brought forth fruits in abundance.
By the radiance of miracles you illumined the whole universe!
O our holy father Zachariah, pray to Christ our God to save our souls!
Text used with permission of the Orthodox Church in America (oca.org).
The discipline for which Zachariah is principally remembered was a near-total renunciation of prepared food. The synaxarion relates that he refused anything baked or boiled, restricting himself to raw greens, and that he broke this single daily meal only at sunset. Such a rule of eating is presented in the tradition as the outward sign of an inner austerity that set him apart even among the ascetics of the Caves.
Zachariah is venerated among the saints of the Kiev Caves Monastery and is commemorated individually on March 24. His name is also reckoned among the venerable fathers of the Caves honored in the monastery's collective commemorations.
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