Prayer as Infinite Creation

Archimandrite Zacharias Zacharou

Jan 2023 · Stavropegic Monastery of St John the Baptist · Narrated by A Monk of the Stavropegic Monastery of Saint John the Baptist

About this audiobook

Prayer, as Saint Sophrony said, is ‘infinite creation’ because it opens before man infinite paths to eternity. It abolishes the power of the spirit of evil, which is a spirit of destruction and ruin, and attracts the Presence of the creative Holy Spirit. The Paraclete Spirit endlessly enlarges the heart of man. He renders it into a place of charismatic divine Presence and a temple made without hands, where supplication and intercession are offered for the whole world. The hidden energy of prayer is nothing other than the natural momentum that God placed in the soul when He created man in His image and likeness. This momentum is the almighty attraction of all things to the Lord of glory being lifted up on the Cross. It grants the energy that refashions the soul by the grace of repentance. Prayer then becomes a continuous summoning of the world back to the ontological level of divine eternity.

About the author

rchimandrite Zacharias was born in 1946 in Rizokarpaso, Cyprus, the easternmost Greek settlement, where he completed his secondary education.

In 1964, he moved to England, where he commenced his studies in chemistry. His meeting with Saint Sophrony, in 1967, the disciple and biographer of Saint Silouan the Athonite was to become the main turning point in his spiritual path. Soon afterwards he decided to follow Elder Sophrony by joining the Monastery of Saint John the Baptist in Essex, England.

Father Zacharias studied theology at the Orthodox Theological Institute of Saint Sergius in Paris and at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Between 1996-1999, he worked upon his doctorate at Aristotle University under the supervision of Professor Georgios Mantzarides, which was entitled, The Realisation of the Hypostatic Principle in the Theology of Elder Sophrony. Soon after it was published with the title Christ our Way and Our Life, A Presentation of the Theology of Archimandrite Sophrony. In 2013, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Theological School of Saint Tikhon in Pennsylvania, America, for his spiritual ministry to the flock of the New World.

As a hieromonk he abides in the monastery of his repentence, where he serves as a spiritual Father and minister of the word of God to his brethren and many others. He has translated all the writings of Saint Silouan and Father Sophrony from the original Russian into Greek and he presents their rich theology to the Orthodox world by writing books and articles and taking part in conferences.