Zachariah, commemorated as a New Martyr of Patras, was a tradesman of the Peloponnese in Greece who worked as a furrier in Patras during the period of Ottoman rule. He is numbered among the New Martyrs who suffered death for confessing the Orthodox faith under the Turks, and is commemorated on January 20. The accounts of his life record that he had earlier renounced Christ and embraced Islam, and that his martyrdom was the consequence of his public return to Christianity.
According to the synaxarion, Zachariah's repentance was prompted by his reading of the devotional book The Salvation of Sinners, attributed to Agapios Landos, which moved him to bitter sorrow over his apostasy. He confessed his denial of Christ to a priest and, after a period of prayer and fasting, was reconciled to the Orthodox Church through the rite appointed for returning apostates. Resolved to undo his denial publicly, he sought the blessing of an Elder to confess Christ before the Ottoman authorities.
The Elder, by tradition, cautioned him that he might not be put to death swiftly but only after prolonged torture, and that he risked denying Christ a second time under suffering; nonetheless, after the saint persisted, the Elder gave his blessing. Having received absolution, chrismation, and Communion, Zachariah went to the residence of the local judge, declared his return to Christianity, and gave up the turban that marked his earlier conversion to Islam.
He was imprisoned and beaten repeatedly, and the accounts relate that he died in the year 1782 after being stretched upon a rack. His body was refused burial; it was dragged through the streets and cast into a dry well. He is venerated in the Orthodox Church as a New Martyr.
