As the early church spread to Greece, many ideas from the realm of Greek philosophy began to intermingle with fledgling Christian doctrines. One of these was the inferiority of all things material, and the consequent inherent impurity of mortal beings. This ancient paradox housed in each human soul—one that pits a carnal body against a spirit of divine origin—is one that has since been perpetuated to the point of presupposition; in his composition Petra: A Ritual Dream (1996), Tavener calls this idea into question and attempts to remind us of our divine origins. "Having in our minds desanctified ourselves," explains the composer, "we have also desanctfied the natural world in our minds. … This self-image and world view have their origin in our loss of memory, in our forgetfulness of who we are, and in our fall to a level of ignorance and stupidity that threatens the survival of our race." The work, then, is "an attempt to see the human race as sacred beings, even as semi-divine beings, not in our own right, but because we are created … in the image of God."

As is characteristic of Tavener's compositional style, Petra: A Ritual Dream takes simple musical gestures and looks at them from every possible angle, in an effort to suspend the sonic object above the flow of time. These aural holograms give works such as this one a characteristic timelessness and meditative depth, inspired by the composer's own fervent religiosity and the solemn rites of his Eastern Orthodox faith. The vocal lines of the tenor soloist betray the influence of liturgical chant, and the frequent use of drones lends the work a ritualistic character. The texture of the work, which the composer says was originally conceived in a sort of half-sleep, is an otherworldly one. The violin frequently doubles the vocal line with thin, high harmonics, and subterranean pedal tones in the strings slowly emerge from and recede back into the depths, providing occasional points of resolute harmonic anchor.

Tavener takes as his text a deeply meditative poem by Georgios Sefaris. The mortar holding the various stanzas together is a refrain centered around two words: "Petros," referring to the disciple Peter, and "petra," meaning stone. Each time the refrain appears, the words are juxtaposed. The work begins and ends with the refrain, "Petra [stone], Petros [Peter], I build." Throughout the work, the three components of the phrase exhaust every possible recombination (I build, Petros, Petra; Petros, I build, Petra; etc.). This is not just alliterative play, of course; it refers to Jesus' words from the book of St. Matthew, chapter 16: "And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." The figure of Peter seems to embody the paradox of man that so fascinates Tavener, for elsewhere in the book of Matthew we read Jesus' accurate prediction of Peter's threefold denial. As the work develops, the refrain is changed in another way as well: the word "risen," sung by the choir in Greek, is added—first just a single syllable, then a single iteration of the word, until finally the choir indulges in numerous effulgent repetitions to close the work. We must assume that this refers not only to the resurrection, but also to man's rise, by grace, from carnality to godliness.

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