Zacharias of Jerusalem

Zacharias of Jerusalem was the Patriarch of Jerusalem of the Church of Jerusalem from 609 to 632. Zacharias spent most of his patriarchate as a prisoner of the Sasanian Emperor Khosrow II following the Sasanian conquest of Jerusalem. He is commemorated by the Orthodox Church on February 21. He is also venerated in the Catholic Church, where he is known mostly for the sacramental called the "Plague Cross of Saint Zacharias of Jerusalem". The prayer, attributed to St Zacharias, is said to have been useful against pestilence in the time of the saint, and the inscribed cross is said to have saved from a plague the participants at the Council of Trent. The cross, sometimes made of wood or inscribed on paper, cloth, or drawn with blessed chalk, and its associated blessing, are a sacramental used by Western Christians, and have seen a resurgence of use during times of plagues and pestilence, such as the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic in 2020–22. Plague crosses often take the form of a cross necklace (which is worn by believers) or a wall cross (which is hung on the walls of homes, hospitals, offices and churches).