Archimandrite Zacharias: Prodigal Sons

The great tragedy of our times lies in the fact that we live, speak, think, and even pray to God, outside our heart, outside our Father’s house.

And truly our Father’s house is our heart, the place where “the spirit of glory and of God” would find repose, that Christ may “be formed in us”.

Indeed, only then can we be made whole, and become hypostases in the image of the true and perfect Hypostasis, the Son and Word of God, Who created and redeemed us by the precious Blood of His ineffable sacrifice.

Archimandrite Zacharias on 

"DEFEATING SIN"

This attractive exposition of current, yet timeless, anthropological issues is distinguished by its clarity of vision and originality of expression. As the book unfolds, it becomes increasingly evident that the unbroken Tradition of the Church is the sole key to understanding God’s revelation to man. Because the author has so firmly placed his trust in the holiness of this Tradition, his thinking, both creative and inspired, elucidates the charismatic character of the way of salvation which leads to the renewal of life. His doctrine issound, and it will surely prove to be of great value in informing and convincing the heart of modern man about God’s truth.

-- Archimandrite Zacharias (Zacharou) of the Patriarchal Stavropegic Monastery of St John the Baptist in Essex, England.

Click here to listen to Fr. Zacharias's talk from Ancient Faith Radio (MP3 download.) 

Remember Thy First Love

February 19, 2013 Length: 13:53

Nicholas Chapman reviews Remember Thy First Love: The Three Stages of the Spiritual Life in the Theology of Elder Sophrony by Archimandrite Zacharias, published by the Stavropegic Monastery of St. John The Baptist

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The Cultivation of the Heart by the Grace of Mindfulness of Death

 The Grace of Mindfulness of Death

In the book, “Christ Our Way and Our Life”, Archimandrite Zacharias Zacharou writes about many of the stages of the spiritual life, including, remembrance of death. He is an Archimandrite in the monastery of St John the Baptist, in Tolleshunt Knights near Maldon, Essex in England. Archimandrite Zacharias spent decades under the spiritual direction of Elder Sophrony of blessed memory, whom, we know, was himself the disciple of St Silouan the Athonite. Here are some passages from his book;

"Considered within the whole mystery of Christ, death is transformed into a challenge on a sublime and metaphysical level, which inspires ‘repentance unto life’, and mindfulness of death proves to be a gift of the Holy Spirit…The purpose of his (man’s) pre-eternal destiny is the acquisition of eternity as an inalienable possession. ..If life comes to a definitive end with death, it has absolutely no meaning. Awareness of our mortality poses the problem of eternity without accepting concession to anything except God. The grace of God, which seeks out the lost sheep wherever he may be, is able to provoke man'seizing him by the throat’, and intensifying his quandary by bestowing a mindfulness of death, which – according to the experience of Fr. Sophrony – proves, as scalding as a ‘mass of molten metal’. The remembrance of death, when it takes the form of awareness of eternity in a negative form, is a remarkable ‘calling’ of man to his pre-eternal destiny to become á ‘partaker of the divine nature’ (2 Pet.1:4). This remembrance, which is activated by the grace of God, is a spiritual phenomenon entirely set apart from the natural or psychological knowledge that man is mortal. Charismatic mindfulness of death is a reality of another order, ‘non-earthy, incomprehensible’. It visits man with sovereign might and prepares him to accept the revelation of the Living God. In his heart a new interior sensitivity is born, which changes his spiritual outlook. It is a spiritual state, which assist man, who is as yet unable to contemplate God, in his quest for eternal truth.

Human Relationships in the Light of Christ

Archmandrite Zacharias 

"Human Relationships in the Light of Christ", talk given by Archimandrite Zacharias in the Orthodox Christian Church in Edinburgh, on 8th of November 2012. 

Archimandrite Zacharias (Zacharou) is a spiritual Father at the Monastery of St John the Baptist in Essex, UK. He is a disciple of Elder Sophrony Zacharov, one of the most significant Orthodox Elders of our times, himself a disciple and biographer of St Silouan the Athonite. Based upon the authentic spiritual legacy of Sophrony's, Fr Zacharias has written some of the most important books on Christian spirituality available today.

Fr Zacharias Zacharou on

 "The Prophetic Gift'

Fr. Zacharias (Zacharou) Source

Archimandrite, Ph.D.

Archimandrite Zacharias, Ph. D., is a disciple of Elder Sophrony 

(of blessed memory), who was a disciple of St. Silouan of Mount

Athos. 

Presently, Fr. Zacharias is a monk in the Monastery founded by

Elder Sophrony: The Patriarchal Stavropegic Monastery of 

St. John the Baptist, Tolleshunt Knights by Maldon, Essex, England.

The publication of Fr Zacharias' lectures is perhaps one of the most

significant events in the life of the Orthodox Church in the twentieth

century. The lectures are available in both audio and printed form.

Please go to Mount Thabor Publishing to purchase this indispensable

spiritual talks.

The Way to Christ is Within and Through the Heart

The way to Christ is within and through the heart. If we desire to meet the Lord Jesus Christ and have communion with Him we must first purify our nous and our innermost being, our heart, and and in this way prepare a holy habitation for our Lord.

Fr Zacharias Zacharou, that blessed disciple of Elder Sophrony of Essex, explains in his book, 'The Hidden Man of the Heart' p.1,

Edited by Christopher Veniamin Mount Thabor Publishing 2008;

"All the ordinances of the undefiled Church are offered to the world for the sole purpose of discovering the deep heart (Ps.64:6) center of man's hypostasis (person). According to the Holy Scriptures, God has fashioned every heart in a special way, and each heart is His goal, a place wherein He desires to abide that He may manifest Himself.

Archimandrite Zacharias:

A Heart as Wide as the Heavens

 Friday, Oct 23 2009 

No matter how daunting and difficult the struggle of purifying the heart may be, nothing should deter us from this undertaking.

We have on our side the ineffable goodness of a God Who has made man’s heart His personal concern and goal.

In the book of Job, we read the following astonishing words “What is man, that thou shouldest magnify him? And that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him? And that thou shouldest visit him every morning, and try him every moment…” (Job 7:17-19).

Archimandrite Zacharias: 

Discovering the “Deep Heart”

Monday, Oct 26 2009 

All of the ordinances of the undefiled Church are offered to the world for the sole purpose of discovering the “deep heart”, the centre of man’s hypostasis.

According to the Holy Scriptures, God has fashioned every heart in a special way, and each heart is His goal, a place wherein He desires to abide that He may manifest Himself.

Since the kingdom of God is within us, the heart is the battlefield of our salvation, and all ascetic effort is aimed at cleansing it of all filthiness, and preserving it pure before the Lord.

Fr Zacharias Zacharou 

on the Life & Teaching of St Silouan 

 

Archimandrite Zacharias, Ph. D., is a disciple of Elder Sophrony (of blessed memory), who was a disciple of St. Silouan of Mount Athos. Presently, Fr. Zacharias is a monk in the Monastery founded by Elder Sophrony: The Patriarchal Stavropegic Monastery of St. John the Baptist, Tolleshunt Knights by Maldon, Essex, England. 

Christ, Our Way and Our Life – 

A Presentation of the Theology of 

Archimandrite Sophrony

By Archimandrite Zacharias Zacharou

- Reviewed by Emmanuel N. Stamatiou 

1. About the Author 

A member of the Patriarchial Stavropegic Monastery of St John the Baptist, England, founded by his spiritual father and translator of Elder Sophrony’s writing from Russian into Greek, Father Zacharias Zacharou holds degrees in Theology from the Institute of St Sergius in Paris, France, and the University of Thessalonika, Greece, also receiving the degree of Doctor of Theology from the latter institution for his work on the Theology of Elder Sophrony.

Apart from his extensive theological qualifications and studies, Father Zacharias was blessed to become a disciple of Elder Sophrony who was the spiritual child of St Silouan the Athonite. Consequently, Father Zacharias inherited the rare and precious spiritual gift of teaching the Word of God, an authentic word, inspired by those contemporary spiritual giants.

Through God’s grace, and the counsels and prayers of his sainted spiritual father, and his own ascetical labours, Father Zacharias has himself adorned the hidden man of his heart with the spiritual knowledge and wisdom which is incorruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, and his teachings will be easily discerned to be living, fruit-bearing branches firmly attached to the True Vine rather than the dry-withered branches of mere theoretical speculation.

2. About Archimandrite Sophrony Sakharov

Born in Moscow in 1896, he left Paris in 1925 and first settled in the Monastery of St Panteleimon on Mt Athos where he formed a close bond with St Silouan (1866 – 1938), in whose person he saw clearly portrayed the authentic dimensions of Christian life.

In 1947 he left Athos to return to France, and in 1948 he published in Russian the manuscripts entrusted to him by St Silouan before his death, having added some biographical information and an extensive analysis of the saint’s teaching.

In 1959 he founded, in Essex, England, the community which was to become the Patriarchial Stavropegic Monastery of St John the Baptist where he fell asleep in the Lord on 11 July 1993. Father Sophrony was endowed with many gifts of the Holy Spirit. The most impressive was the living Word of God which he grasped through prayer and carried on his heart.

3. About this Book

Those who have not read many or any works of the Holy Fathers may find sections of this book difficult to understand because of the choice of theological words and language. However, Father Zacharias’ explanation of Elder Sophrony’s theology is relatively straight forward if the reader is not frightened away by words such as:- Hypostatic Principle, “Perichoresis”, “Kenosis”, etc.

Briefly, Father Zacharias interprets the Sophronic theology as follows:-