Spiritual brotherhood with Basilisk
Attracted while still a layman to the eremitic life of the Bryansk monks, Zachariah (as he was then called) formed a lasting spiritual bond with the Elder Basilisk. Basilisk first directed him to live at the cenobitic Konevets Monastery for three years before accepting him as a companion.
Though Basilisk was his elder, Zosima surpassed him in understanding and spiritual discretion through his study of the patristic writings. He revealed to Basilisk what one account calls 'the secret monastic treasure,' explaining the teaching on the Prayer of the Heart, and compiled a manuscript documenting Basilisk's spiritual experiences and revelations.
The two ascetics spent roughly twenty years in hermitage near Kuznetsk in the Siberian forest, supporting themselves by craftwork — Basilisk made pottery and Zosima made wooden dishes. During one harrowing winter, when a promised delivery of food failed, Zosima nearly drowned in an icy river but, as tradition relates, was rescued after the two cried out to the Mother of God.
Monastic foundations and rule
Zosima petitioned the Holy Synod to redesignate a monastery at Turinsk for women disciples, establishing the Saint Nicholas–Turinsk Convent in 1822, and traveled to Saint Petersburg in early 1823 to seek synodal approval of a rule he composed on the communal principles of Basil the Great.
Dismissed from Turinsk in 1825 amid disputes within the community, he settled at Moscow's Chudov Monastery with the blessing of Metropolitan Philaret (Drozdov) and in 1826 founded the Troitse-Odigitrievskaya Hermitage in the Verey district, on land given by Maria Bakhmeteva, gathering there the nuns loyal to him while himself keeping a forest cell nearby.
Following Basilisk's death, he commissioned a portrait of his companion and remained closely involved with the monastic community they had helped establish.
Writings
Zosima's writings, all composed in Church Slavonic, include the 'Sealed Letters,' lives of Basilisk and of Peter of Tomsk, a treatise on obedience, and a seventy-five-part exposition on the Jesus Prayer.
An akathist to the saint was approved by the Sacred Synod on 28 December 2018 and published separately in 2021.
Relics & Shrines
After his repose in 1833 local veneration began, and Metropolitan Philaret blessed the construction of a Trinity church over his grave. In the 1880s his relics were uncovered and transferred to a new stone coffin; the body was found whole, though the feet had decayed.
An examination on 25 December 1999 found the white-stone sarcophagus empty, and the present location of the relics remains unknown.
