Archbishop of Luke Professor of Surgery. Icon of Saint Luke

Editor's response

From April 1 to 2, believers can venerate the relics of St. Luke, which were exhibited in the Donskoy Monastery in Moscow. AiF.ru talks about the life of the saint.

Archbishop Luke, in peace Valentin Feliksovich Voino-Yasenetsky, born on April 27, 1877 in Kerch in a large family of a pharmacist Felix Stanislavovich, who came from an ancient Russian noble family. The father, being a convinced Catholic, did not impose his religious views on the family. Mother, Maria Dmitrievna, raised her children in Orthodox traditions and was actively involved in charity work.

At baptism the baby was named Valentine in honor of the holy martyr Valentin Interamsky, who received the gift of healing from the Lord and then became a priest. Like his heavenly patron, he became both a doctor and a clergyman.

The secular life of St. Luke

Valentin spent his childhood in Kerch. In 1889, the family moved to Kyiv, where he graduated from high school and art school. After that, he submitted documents to the Academy of Arts, but later withdrew them, deciding to choose medicine. I tried to enter the Faculty of Medicine at Kiev University, but failed.

He managed to enter the medical university in 1898. “From a failed artist, I became an artist in anatomy and surgery,” he said about his education. After graduation, he became a zemstvo doctor and worked at the Kiev Red Cross Medical Hospital.

In 1904, as part of the hospital, he went to the Russo-Japanese War. He worked in an evacuation hospital in Chita, and headed the surgical department.

In the fall of 1908, he left for Moscow and entered an externship at the Moscow surgical clinic of the famous professor Dyakonov, and was engaged in anatomical practice at the Institute of Topographic Anatomy.

At the beginning of 1909, Valentin Feliksovich submitted a petition and was approved as the chief physician of the hospital in the village of Romanovka, Balashov district, Saratov province. Sometimes, without tools at hand, during emergency operations he used a penknife, a quill pen, plumbers' pliers, and instead of thread, a woman's hair. In 1910, he submitted a petition to the doctor of the Pereslavl-Zalessky hospital in the Vladimir province, where he first headed the city, and soon - the factory and district hospitals, as well as a military hospital.

Pastoral activities

In 1921 he decided to become a priest. He did not stop his surgical and teaching work. “I consider it my main duty to preach about Christ everywhere and everywhere,” he remained faithful to this principle until the end of his days.

In 1923, he was secretly tonsured a monk with the name of the Holy Apostle and Evangelist Luke and received the rank of bishop. This was followed by arrests and exiles. Years of prison, Stalin’s camps and a 13-day “conveyor belt” interrogation, when he was not allowed to sleep, but did not break him - he did not sign the documents and did not renounce the priesthood. In the Tambov diocese, Bishop Luka simultaneously served in the church and worked as a surgeon in 150 hospitals for two years. Thanks to his brilliant operations, thousands of soldiers and officers returned to duty.

After World War II, Bishop Luke was appointed Archbishop of Simferopol and Crimea. During the entire time of his service at the Crimean department, he received patients at home, consulted in a military hospital, lectured at a medical institute, served and gave sermons in churches.

Merits in medicine

In 1946, Voino-Yasenetsky was awarded the Stalin Prize of the first degree for services to medicine. He gave the first systematic teaching on local anesthesia using ethyl alcohol injected into nerve bundles, and also substantiated the systematic use of antiseptic methods for purulent surgery even before the invention of antibiotics.

As a surgeon, he performed many operations on patients with diseases of the biliary tract, stomach and other abdominal organs. He worked successfully in such areas of surgery as neurosurgery and orthopedics. He expressed a number of important ideas in certain medical areas: the theory of clinical diagnosis, medical psychology and deontology, surgery (including general, abdominal, thoracic, urology, orthopedics and other sections), military field surgery and anesthesiology, healthcare organization and social hygiene.

Veneration and canonization

Archbishop Luke died on June 11, 1961. In November 1995, by decree of the Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, Archbishop Luke was canonized as a locally revered saint. On the night of March 17-18, 1996, the discovery of the holy relics of Archbishop Luke took place. Archbishop Luke was glorified among the host of new martyrs and confessors of Russia in 2000.

(1877–1961)

Saint Luke, in the world Valentin Feliksovich (Voino-Yasenetsky) was born in Kerch, April 27, 1877. He was the third child in the family, and there were five children in total.

Valentin's father, Felix Stanislavovich, belonged to Catholic Church. By profession he was a pharmacist. Mother, Maria Dmitrievna, professed the true Orthodox faith.

According to the established principles in Russia at that time regarding the upbringing of children born in mixed marriages, Valentin’s personality was formed in line with Orthodox traditions. His father, in general, did not object to this approach and did not impose on his son own worldview. His mother taught him religious principles.

In 1899, the Voino-Yasenetsky family moved to Kyiv. Here Valentin, with the help of God, graduated from two educational institutions: a gymnasium and a drawing (art) school.

Thinking about choosing a future path in life, he considered two priority options: becoming an artist or a doctor. Already at the stage of readiness to enter the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg, he changed his mind and decided to devote his energies to medicine. The most important selection criterion was the desire to alleviate people's suffering. In addition, he believed that in the place of a doctor he would bring more benefit to society.

In 1898, Valentin entered the Kiev University, the Faculty of Medicine. He studied well, as he should capable person who has made a deliberate choice regarding their future profession. He graduated from the university in 1903. A good career could open up before him, which many less talented peers could only dream of. But, to the surprise of those around him, he announced that he wanted to become a zemstvo, “peasant” doctor.

Medical activity

With the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War, Valentin Feliksovich, accepting the offer of the leadership, went to Far East, to participate in the activities of the Red Cross detachment. There he headed the surgery department at the Kyiv Red Cross hospital, located in Chita. In this position, V. Voino-Yasenetsky acquired enormous medical experience.

During the same period, he met and formed a bond of love with a sister of mercy, a kind and gentle Christian Anna Lanskaya. By that time, she had refused two doctors seeking her female attention, and as they say, she was ready to live her life in sacred celibacy. But Valentin Feliksovich managed to reach her heart. In 1904, the young couple got married in a local Chita church. Over time, Anna became a faithful assistant to her husband not only in family matters, but also in her doctoral practice.

After the war, V. Voino-Yasenetsky fulfilled his long-standing desire to become a zemstvo doctor. In the period from 1905 to 1917, he worked in urban and rural hospitals in different regions of the country: in the Simbirsk province, then in Kursk, Saratov, on the territory of Ukraine, and finally in Pereyaslavl-Zalessky.

In 1908, Valentin Feliksovich arrived in Moscow and got a job as an external student at P. Dyakonov’s surgical clinic.

In 1916 he finished writing and successfully defended his doctoral dissertation. The topic of that doctoral work turned out to be so important and relevant, and its content so deep and elaborate, that one of the scientists, in admiration, compared it to the singing of a bird. The University of Warsaw then honored V. Voino-Yasenetsky with a special prize.

Post-revolutionary years

The first years after October Revolution were literally bloody. During this difficult time, the state experienced a special need for medical workers. So, despite his commitment to faith, for some time Valentin Feliksovich was not persecuted.

From 1917 to 1923 he lived in Tashkent and worked at the Novo-Gorodskaya hospital as a surgeon. He willingly shared his experience with his students and taught at a medical school (later reorganized into the Faculty of Medicine).

During this period, the death of his beloved wife, who died of tuberculosis in 1919 and left four children without maternal care, turned out to be a serious test for V. Voino-Yasenetsky.

In 1920, Valentin Feliksovich accepted an offer to head the department at the State Turkestan University, recently opened in Tashkent.

Priestly ministry

In addition to performing official and family duties during this period, he took active participation in church life, attended meetings of the Tashkent Brotherhood. Once, after a successful report by V. Voino-Yasenetsky at a church congress, Tashkent Bishop Innocent expressed to him a wish that he become a priest. V. Voino-Yasenetsky, who had not thought about such an option for his life path, suddenly answered the bishop without delay that he agreed, if it pleases God.

In 1921 he was ordained a deacon, and a few days later - a priest. Having become a priest, Father Valentin was assigned to a local Tashkent church, where he served, pleasing God. At the same time, he did not interrupt either his medical or teaching practice.

In 1923, the renovationist movement that developed under the Church reached Tashkent. Bishop Innocent, for a number of related reasons, left the city without transferring leadership of the department to anyone. During this difficult period for the clergy and flock, Father Valentin, together with priest Mikhail Andreev, made every effort to unite the local clergy and even took part in organizing a congress (sanctioned by the GPU).

Monastic and episcopal ministry

In the same year, 1923, Father Valentin, moved by zeal and piety, took monastic vows. It is reported that initially Bishop of Ufa Andrei (Ukhtomsky) intended to give him the monastic name Panteleimon, in honor of the Christian healer glorified by God, but then, after listening to his sermons, he changed his mind and chose the name of the Evangelist, physician and Apostle Luke. So Father Valentin became Hieromonk Luke.

At the end of May of the same year, Hieromonk Luke was secretly installed as Bishop of Penjikent, and a few days later he was arrested because of his support for the line of Patriarch Tikhon. The accusation brought against him today seems not only far-fetched, but also absurd: the authorities accused him of counter-revolutionary connections with some Orenburg Cossacks and of collaboration with the British.

For some time, the arrested saint languished in the dungeon of the Tashkent GPU, and then he was taken to Moscow. Soon he was allowed to live in a private apartment, but then he was taken into custody again: first to Butyrskaya prison, and then to Taganskaya. Then the sufferer was sent into exile to the Yenisei.

In Yeniseisk he served at home. In addition, he was allowed to operate, and he saved the health of more than one resident. Several times the saint was transferred from one place to another. But even there he used every opportunity to serve God and heal people.

After the end of his exile, Bishop Luke returned to Tashkent and served in the local church. But the Soviet authorities were not going to leave the bishop alone. In May 1931, he was arrested again and, after spending several months in prison, he received a sentence: exile to Arkhangelsk for three years. In Arkhangelsk, he also treated patients.

Returning from prison, in 1934 he visited the city of Tashkent, and then settled in Andijan. Here he fulfilled the duties of a bishop and a doctor. Catching a fever turned out to be a misfortune for him: the disease threatened him with loss of vision and the saint underwent surgery (as a patient), as a result of which he became blind in one eye.

A new arrest followed in December 1937. The saint was interrogated for several days in a row and demanded to sign protocols prepared in advance by the investigation. In response, he went on a hunger strike, flatly refusing to sign anything that his Christian conscience could not agree with. A new sentence followed, a new exile, this time to Siberia.

From 1937 to 1941, the convicted bishop lived in the town of Bolshaya Murta, on the territory Krasnoyarsk Territory. With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, he was moved to Krasnoyarsk and was involved in treating the wounded.

In 1943, the saint ascended to the Krasnoyarsk archiepiscopal see, and a year later he was appointed Archbishop of Tambov and Michurinsk. During this period, the attitude of the authorities towards the saint seemed to change. In February 1946, for scientific developments in the field of medicine, he was awarded a state award - the Stalin Prize.

In May 1946, Saint Luke became Archbishop of Crimea and Simferopol. At this time, his eye disease began to progress, and in 1958 he became completely blind. However, as eyewitnesses recall, in this state the saint not only did not lose his courage, but also did not lose the ability to independently come to the temple, venerate shrines, and participate in divine services.

On June 11, 1961, the Lord called him to His Heavenly Kingdom. The saint was buried at the Simferopol cemetery.

He left behind a number of scientific and theological works. Among the latter, it is appropriate to note: , Lord's, .

Troparion to Saint Luke (Voino-Yasenetsky), Archbishop of Crimea, tone 1

To the proclaimer of the path of salvation, / the confessor and archpastor of the Crimean land, / the true keeper of fatherly traditions, / the unshakable pillar of Orthodoxy, the teacher of Orthodoxy, / the godly physician, Saint Luke, / constantly pray to Christ the Savior / to grant the unshakable faith to the Orthodox // both salvation and great mercy.

Kontakion to Saint Luke (Voino-Yasenetsky), Archbishop of Crimea, tone 1

Like an all-bright star, with shining virtues, / you were a saint, / you created a soul equal to the angel, / for this sake you were honored with the rank of holiness, / and in exile you suffered a lot from the godless / and remained unshakable in faith, / with medical wisdom you healed many . / Moreover, now your honorable body, wondrously found from the depths of the earth, / The Lord glorify, / let all the faithful cry out to you: / Rejoice, Father Saint Luke, / praise and affirmation of the Crimean lands.

Prayer

O all-blessed confessor, holy saint, our Father Luke, great servant of Christ. With tenderness we bow the knee of our hearts, and falling before the race of your honest and multi-healing relics, like the children of our father, we pray to you with all our zeal: hear us sinners and bring our prayer to the merciful and man-loving God, to whom you now stand in the joy of the saints and from the face of an angel. We believe that you love us with the same love that you loved all your neighbors while you were on earth. Ask Christ our God to confirm His children in the spirit of right faith and piety: to the shepherds to give holy zeal and care for the salvation of the people entrusted to them: to observe the right of believers, to strengthen the weak and infirm in the faith, to instruct the ignorant, to reprove the contrary. Give us all a gift that is useful to everyone, and everything that is useful for temporary life and eternal salvation. Strengthening our cities, fruitful lands, deliverance from famine and destruction. Comfort for the grieving, healing for the ailing, return to the path of truth for those who have gone astray, blessing from a parent, upbringing and teaching for a child in the Passion of the Lord, help and intercession for the orphaned and needy. Grant us all your archpastoral blessing, so that if we have such a prayerful intercession, we will get rid of the wiles of the evil one and avoid all enmity and disorder, heresies and schisms. Guide us on the path leading to the villages of the righteous and pray to the almighty God for us, eternal life Let us be worthy with you to continually glorify the Consubstantial and Indivisible Trinity, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

On many icons, especially Greek ones, St. Luke is depicted with surgical instruments in his hands.

In 2000, at the anniversary Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church, the name of a man who is known as an outstanding scientist and world-famous surgeon, professor of medicine, spiritual writer, theologian, thinker, confessor, author of 55 scientific works was included in the Council of New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia for church-wide veneration. and 12 volumes of sermons. His scientific works on purulent surgery remain reference books for surgeons to this day.

Having the talent of an artist, he could lead a bohemian lifestyle, getting his hands dirty only with paints, but he became a “peasant doctor,” a priest, and a victim of political repression. He could exhibit his paintings in the best halls of the world, but he consciously chose the path of serving ordinary people, a path full of suffering, blood, sweat and pus. This path brought him not wealth and honors, but arrests, hard labor and exile, the farthest of which was 200 kilometers from the Arctic Circle. But even during his exile, he did not give up his scientific activities and managed to develop new method treatment of purulent wounds, which helped save thousands of lives during the Great Patriotic War.

Stalin Prize for children

After serving 11 years in Stalin's camps, the archbishop-surgeon was awarded the medal "For Valiant Labor in the Great Patriotic War", the highest church award - the right to wear a diamond cross on his hood - and the Stalin Prize of the first degree in medicine.

In 1946, having become Archbishop of Simferopol and Crimea and receiving this high state award, he donated 130 thousand of the 200 thousand rubles of the bonus to help children who suffered during the war.

At the beginning of the war, Bishop Luke sent a telegram to M.I. Kalinin with a request to interrupt his next exile and send him to work in a hospital at the front or in the rear: “As a specialist in purulent surgery, I can help soldiers... At the end of the war, I am ready to return to exile.”

The answer came immediately. At the end of July, he was transferred to my native Krasnoyarsk, appointing him as a consultant to all hospitals in the Krasnoyarsk Territory and chief surgeon of evacuation hospital No. 1515. Thanks to his brilliant operations, thousands of soldiers and officers returned to duty.

After 10-11 hours in the operating room, he went home and prayed, because in the city with a population of many thousands there was not a single functioning temple.

The bishop lived in a damp, cold room and was constantly hungry, because... The professors began to be fed in the hospital kitchen only in the spring of 1942, and he had no time to stock up on cards. Fortunately, the nurses secretly left him porridge.

Colleagues recalled that they looked at him as if he were God: “He taught us a lot. No one except him could operate on osteomyelitis. But there were tons of purulent ones! He taught both during operations and in his excellent lectures.”

Saint Luke Voino-Yasenetsky: “The wounded saluted me... with their feet”

The visiting inspector of all evacuation hospitals, Professor N.N. Priorov noted that nowhere had he seen such brilliant results in the treatment of infectious joint wounds as with Vladyka Luka. He was awarded a certificate and gratitude from the Military Council of the Siberian Military District. “I have great honor,” he wrote at the time, “when I enter large meetings of employees or commanders, everyone stands up.”

“The wounded officers and soldiers loved me very much,” wrote the professor, who had bright and joyful memories of those war years. “When I walked around the wards in the morning, the wounded greeted me joyfully. Some of them... invariably saluted me with their feet raised high.”

In the Krasnoyarsk Territory, the surgeon saint was in exile twice - in the early 1920s and at the turn of 1930-1940. From Krasnoyarsk, the bishop wrote to his son: “I fell in love with suffering, which so amazingly cleanses the soul.” As a native of Krasnoyarsk, I was proud to learn from the book by V.A. Lisichkin “The Military Path of St. Luke (Voino-Yasenetsky)”, that it was in my hometown that Bishop Luke became Archbishop of Krasnoyarsk and a permanent member of the Holy Synod.

On March 5, 1943, he writes a very bright letter to his son: “The Lord sent me unspeakable joy. After 16 years of painful longing for the church and silence, the Lord opened my lips again. A small church was opened in Nikolaevka, a suburb of Krasnoyarsk, and I was appointed Archbishop of Krasnoyarsk...” “The Holy Synod under the Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal Throne, Metropolitan Sergius, equated my treatment of the wounded with valiant episcopal service and elevated me to the rank of archbishop.” I think this is a unique case in the history of the Russian Orthodox Church.

When he left the Krasnoyarsk department, my mother was 5 years old, but my grandmother, who worked as a postman in Krasnoyarsk, could not help but hear about the bishop-surgeon, exiled to the Krasnoyarsk Territory (to the village of Bolshaya Murta). I was born in Krasnoyarsk after the death of St. Luke. Leaving my hometown after graduating from school, I had no idea about God or whether at that time at least one temple was open. I only remember the chapel towering over the city, which can be seen on ten-ruble banknotes.

I am glad that on November 15, 2002, my fellow countrymen erected a bronze monument in the center of Krasnoyarsk depicting Archbishop Luke with his hands folded in prayer. This is the third monument after Tambov and Simferopol. But only Krasnoyarsk residents or guests of the city can come to him. But residents of the Krasnoyarsk Territory and Khakassia come to another “Saint Luke” - a “health train” with a temple car for medical and spiritual help.

How people are waiting for this clinic on wheels, proudly bearing the name of one of the most prominent figures Russian medicine and Russian Orthodox Church! Church, whose representatives Soviet power for decades it was destroyed, shot, exiled to camps, imprisoned. But not all the inhabitants of Stalin’s camps were later awarded by the same government with the highest state awards.

Saint Luke Voino-Yasenetsky. Artist in Anatomy and Surgery

I first learned about Saint Luke during a pilgrimage trip to Crimea, when I was already an adult. Later I read that St. Luke, through whose prayers people sick with a variety of diseases, including cancer, still receive healing, was born on April 27 (May 9, new style) 1877 in Kerch in the large family of the pharmacist Felix Stanislavovich, who came from from an ancient Russian noble family. At baptism, the baby was named Valentin (which means “strong, strong”) in honor of the holy martyr Valentin of Interam, who received the gift of healing from the Lord and then became a priest. Like his heavenly patron, he became both a doctor and a clergyman.

Archbishop of Tambov Luke, Tambov, 1944

And the future saint was named Luke during monastic tonsure in honor of the holy Apostle Luke, a doctor and icon painter.

This amazing person During his 84-year life, he saved a huge number of hopeless patients, and he remembered many of them by sight and name. The Bishop also taught his students this kind of “human surgery.” “For a surgeon there should be no “case,” he said, “but only a living suffering person.” For the sake of this suffering man, Valentin Feliksovich sacrificed his youthful dream of becoming an artist.

After graduating from a gymnasium and an art school in Kyiv during entrance exams to the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, he suddenly decided that he did not have the right to do what he liked, “but he was obliged to do what was useful for suffering people,” i.e. medicine, because It was the Russian hinterland that needed medical help.

However, he nevertheless became an artist - “an artist in anatomy and surgery,” as he called himself. Having overcome his aversion to natural sciences, Valentin graduated from the Faculty of Medicine with flying colors and received a diploma with honors. But he preferred the position of a simple zemstvo doctor to a career as a scientist - a “peasant” doctor. Sometimes, having no tools at hand, he used a penknife, a quill pen, plumber's pliers, and instead of thread, a woman's hair.

Valentin Feliksovich Voino-Yasenetsky was widowed in 1919, having lost his beloved wife and mother of four children. In February 1921, in scary time repressions, when thousands of laymen and priests who rejected renovationism were in prisons, exiles and camps, the surgeon Valentin Feliksovich became a priest. Now he operated and lectured to students in a cassock and with a cross on his chest. I prayed before the operation Mother of God, blessed the patient and placed an iodine cross on his body. When an icon was once taken out of the operating room, the surgeon did not begin operations until the high authorities’ wife fell ill and the icon was returned to its place. He always spoke openly about his faith: “Wherever they send me, God is everywhere.” “I consider it my main duty to preach about Christ everywhere and everywhere,” he remained faithful to this principle until the end of his days.

In his autobiography, the surgeon saint wrote: “Nothing could compare in its enormous power of impression with that passage in the Gospel in which Jesus, pointing to the fields of ripened wheat to the disciples, said to them: The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; So, pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest (Matthew 9: 37-38). My heart literally trembled... “Oh God! Do you really have few workers?!” Later, many years later, when the Lord called me to be a worker in His field, I was sure that this Gospel text was God’s first call to serve Him.”

Saint Luke Voino-Yasenetsky: “In serving God all my joy”

“I have truly and deeply renounced the world and my medical fame, which, of course, could have been very great, which is now worth nothing to me. And in serving God all my joy, my whole life, for my faith is deep. However, medical and scientific work I don’t intend to leave,” Valentin Feliksovich wrote to his son Mikhail. And again: “Oh, if you only knew how stupid and limited atheism is, how alive and real is the communication with God of those who love Him...”

In 1923, the famous surgeon took secret monastic vows and was elevated to the rank of bishop. He freely and openly chose way of the cross martyrdom, suffering and heroism, the path of a “lamb among wolves,” which I have never regretted.

One day, the head of the Cheka, Peters, asked the professor: “Tell me, priest and professor Yasenetsky-Voino, how do you pray at night and slaughter people during the day?” “I cut people to save them, but in the name of what are you cutting people, citizen public prosecutor?” the doctor answered. “How do you believe in God, priest and professor Yasenetsky-Voino? Have you seen your God?

“I really didn’t see God... But I operated a lot on the brain and, when I opened the skull, I never saw the mind there either. And I didn’t find any conscience there either. Does this mean that they don’t exist?”

Amid the laughter of the entire audience, “The Doctors’ Plot” failed miserably.

Vladyka Luka was not broken by numerous arrests, nor by years of prisons and Stalinist camps, nor by a 13-day interrogation by an “assembly line” when he was not allowed to sleep, nor by slander and exile. How many people have broken down in such conditions! But he did not sign anything and did not renounce the priesthood. According to him, he was helped along such a thorny path by the almost real feeling that he was supported and strengthened by “Jesus Christ Himself.”

Using the biography of St. Luke of Voino-Yasenetsky, you can study the history and geography of Russia. He survived the revolution, the Russo-Japanese War, Civil War, two world wars, the Great Patriotic War, persecution of the Church, years of camps and exile.

Here are just some of the places where he happened to live: Kerch, Chisinau, Kyiv, Chita, Simbirsk, Kursk, Saratov, Vladimir, Oryol, Chernigov provinces, Moscow, Pereslavl-Zalessky, Turkestan, Tashkent, Andijan, Samarkand, Pejikent, Arkhangelsk, Krasnoyarsk , Yeniseisk, Bolshaya Murta, Turukhansk, Plakhino, Tambov, Tobolsk, Tyumen, Crimea...

Over the years, Bishop was Bishop of Tashkent and Turkestan (01/25/1925 - September 1927), Bishop of Yelets, vicar of the Oryol diocese (10/5/1927 - 11/11/1927), Archbishop of Krasnoyarsk and Yenisei (12/27/1942 - 02/7/1944), Archbishop of Tambov and Michurinsky (02/07/1944 – 04/5/1946), Archbishop of Simferopol and Crimea (04/5/1946 – 06/11/1961).

In the Tambov diocese, Bishop Luka simultaneously served in the church and worked as a surgeon in 150 hospitals for two years. Thanks to his brilliant operations, thousands of soldiers and officers returned to duty.

In 1946, the Bishop was appointed Archbishop of Simferopol and Crimea. Here he completes his work on the theological work “Spirit, Soul and Body,” in which attention is also paid to the teaching of the Holy Scriptures about the heart as the organ of knowledge of God. When Archbishop Luke became completely blind in 1958, he wrote to his daughter: “I refused the operation and humbly accepted God’s will for me to be blind until my death. I will continue my episcopal service until the end.”

On June 11, 1961, on the Day of All Saints, who shone in the Russian land, 84-year-old Archbishop Luke departed to the Lord. For three days, an inexhaustible stream of people came to say goodbye to their beloved archpastor. Many sick people at the grave of St. Luke received healing.

Saint Luke (Voino-Yasenetsky), confessor, Archbishop of Krasnoyarsk and Crimea(in the world Valentin Feliksovich Voino-Yasenetsky; April 27 (May 9), 1877, Kerch - June 11, 1961, Simferopol) - professor of medicine and spiritual writer, bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church; since April 1946 - Archbishop of Simferopol and Crimea. Winner of the Stalin Prize, first degree (1946).

Canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church in the host of new martyrs and confessors of Russia for church-wide veneration in 2000; memory - May 29 according to the Julian calendar.

Biography

Social life

Born on April 27 (May 9), 1877 in Kerch, in the family of pharmacist Felix Stanislavovich Voino-Yasenetsky (according to some sources, until 1929, the double surname of Valentin Feliksovich was written as Yasenetsky-Voino), who came from an ancient and noble, but impoverished Polish noble family family and was a devout Roman Catholic. The mother was Orthodox and did works of mercy. As the saint wrote in his memoirs, he inherited religiosity from his father. The future priest was interested in Tolstoy for some time, wrote to the count asking him to influence his mother, who was trying to return him to official Orthodoxy, and offered to leave for Yasnaya Polyana. After reading Tolstoy’s book “What Is My Faith,” which was banned in Russia, I became disillusioned with Tolstoyism. However, he retained some Tolstoyan-populist ideas.

After graduating from high school, when choosing a path in life, he hesitated between medicine and drawing. He applied to the Academy of Arts, but, after hesitating, decided to choose medicine as more useful to society. I tried to enter the Faculty of Medicine at Kiev University, but failed. He was offered to go to the Faculty of Science, but he preferred the Faculty of Law (since he never liked either biology or chemistry, he preferred the humanities to them). After studying for a year, he left the university and studied painting in Munich at the private school of Professor Knirr. After returning to Kyiv, ordinary people painted from life. Observing his suffering: poverty, poverty, illness, he finally decided to become a doctor in order to benefit society.

In 1898 he became a student at the Faculty of Medicine of Kyiv University. He studied well, was the head of the group, and was especially successful in studying anatomy: “The ability to draw very subtly and my love for form turned into a love for anatomy... From a failed artist, I became an artist in anatomy and surgery.”

At the end of it, during the Russo-Japanese War, he worked as a surgeon as part of the Red Cross medical detachment in a military hospital in Chita, where he married a nurse at the Kyiv military hospital, Anna Vasilievna Lanskaya, the daughter of an estate manager in Ukraine. They had four children.

He was motivated by Tolstoy’s idea of ​​populism: to become a zemstvo, “peasant” doctor. He worked as a surgeon in the city of Ardatov, Simbirsk province, in the village of Verkhniy Lyubazh, Fatezh district, Kursk province, in the city of Fatezh, and from 1910 - in Pereslavl-Zalessky. During this work, I became interested in the problem of pain management during operations. I read the book by the German surgeon Heinrich Braun “Local anesthesia, its scientific basis and practical applications.” After which he went to Moscow to collect materials to the famous scientist, founder of the journal "Surgery" Pyotr Ivanovich Dyakonov. He allowed Voino-Yasenetsky to work at the Institute of Topographic Anatomy. Valentin Feliksovich dissected, honing the technique of regional anesthesia, for several months and at the same time studied French.

In 1915, he published the book “Regional Anesthesia” in St. Petersburg with his own illustrations. The old methods of soaking everything that needs to be cut in layers with an anesthetic solution have been replaced by a new, elegant and attractive technique of local anesthesia, which is based on the deeply rational idea of ​​\u200b\u200binterrupting the conduction of the nerves that transmit pain sensitivity from the area to be operated on. In 1916, Valentin Feliksovich defended this work as a dissertation and received the degree of Doctor of Medicine. However, the book was published in such a low print run that the author did not even have a copy to send to the University of Warsaw, where he could receive a prize for it.

He continued practical surgery in the village of Romanovka, Saratov province, and then in Pereslavl-Zalessky, where he performed complex operations on the bile ducts, stomachs, intestines, kidneys, and even on the heart and brain. He also performed eye surgeries and restored sight to the blind. It was in Pereyaslavl that he conceived the book “Essays on Purulent Surgery.” In the Feodorovsky convent, where Valentin Feliksovich was a doctor, his memory is honored to this day. Monastyrskaya business correspondence unexpectedly reveals another side of the activity of the unmercenary doctor, which Valentin Feliksovich Voino-Yasenetsky did not consider it necessary to mention in his notes.

Here are two letters in full where the name of Dr. Yasenetsky-Voino is mentioned (according to the then accepted spelling):

"Dear Mother Eugenia!

Since Yasenetsky-Voino is actually the doctor of the Feodorovsky Monastery, but I am apparently listed only on paper, I consider this order of things offensive for myself, and refuse the title of doctor of the Feodorovsky Monastery; I hasten to notify you of my decision. Please accept the assurance of my utmost respect for you.

Doctor... December 30, 1911 "

"To the Vladimir Medical Department of the Provincial Administration.

With this I have the honor to most humbly inform you: Doctor N... left his service at the Feodorovsky Monastery entrusted to my supervision at the beginning of February, and with the departure of Doctor N..., doctor Valentin Feliksovich Yasenetsky-Voino is constantly providing medical assistance. At large quantities living sisters, as well as members of the families of clergy, need medical help and, seeing this need of the monastery, the doctor Yasenetsky-Voino submitted a written application to me on March 10 to donate his work free of charge.

Feodorovsky maiden monastery, Abbess Evgeniy."

The decision to provide free medical care could not have been a random step on the part of the young zemstvo doctor. Mother Abbess would not have found it possible to accept such help from young man without first being convinced that this desire comes from deep spiritual motives. The personality of the venerable old woman could make a strong impression on the future confessor of the faith. He might have been attracted by the monastery and the unique spirit of the ancient monastery.

Beginning of pastoral activity

Since March 1917 - chief physician Tashkent city hospital. In Tashkent, he was struck by the religiosity of the local population and began attending church. He led an active surgical practice and contributed to the founding of the Turkestan University, where he headed the department of operative surgery. In October 1919, at the age of 38, Anna Vasilievna died. Valentin Feliksovich grieved the death of his faithful friend, believing that this death was pleasing to God. After this, his religious views strengthened:

“Unexpectedly for everyone, before starting the operation, Voino-Yasenetsky crossed himself, crossed the assistant, the operating nurse and the patient. Lately, he always did this, regardless of the patient’s nationality and religion. One day after sign of the cross the patient, a Tatar by nationality, told the surgeon: “I’m a Muslim. Why are you baptizing me?” The answer was: “Even though religions are different, there is one God. Under God, everyone is one.”

Two sides of one fate

In January 1920, a diocesan congress of clergy took place, where he was invited as an active parishioner and a respected person in the city. At this congress, Bishop Innocent invited him to become a priest, to which Valentin Feliksovich agreed. He hung an icon in the operating room and began coming to work in a cassock, despite the displeasure of many colleagues and students. On Candlemas (February 15), 1921, he was ordained a deacon, and a week later - a presbyter by Bishop Innokenty (Pustynsky) of Tashkent and Turkestan. In the summer of 1921, he had to speak publicly in court, defending Professor P. P. Sitkovsky and his colleagues from charges of “sabotage” brought by the authorities.

In the spring of 1923, in the Turkestan diocese, most of the clergy and churches recognized the authority of the Renovation Synod (the diocese came under the control of the Renovation Bishop Nicholas (Koblov)); Archbishop Innocent, after the arrest of a number of “old church” clergy, left the diocese without permission. Father Valentin remained a faithful supporter of Patriarch Tikhon, and the decision was made to make him the new bishop. In May 1923, Archpriest Valentin Voino-Yasenetsky was secretly tonsured as a monk in his bedroom by exiled Bishop Andrei (Ukhtomsky), who had the blessing from Patriarch Tikhon himself to select candidates for episcopal consecration, with the name of the holy Apostle Luke (according to legend, also a doctor and an artist).

On May 31, 1923, on behalf of Bishop Andrey (Ukhtomsky), being only a hieromonk, he was secretly ordained bishop in Penjikent by two exiled bishops: Daniil (Troitsky) of Bolkhovsky and Suzdalsky Vasily(Buzzer); a week later he was arrested on charges of connections with the Orenburg White Guard Cossacks and espionage for Great Britain across the Turkish border.

Valentin Feliksovich expressed his attitude towards Soviet power in one of his further letters:

“During the interrogation, the security officer asked me about my political views and my attitude towards Soviet power. Having heard that I had always been a democrat, he posed the question bluntly: “So who are you - our friend or our enemy?” I answered: “Both friend and enemy . If I had not been a Christian, I would probably have become a communist. But you led the persecution of Christianity, and therefore, of course, I am not your friend."

Bishop Luke was sent to Moscow to consider the case. There, during the consideration of the case, he met twice with Patriarch Tikhon, and he confirmed his right to practice medicine. He was in Butyrskaya prison, then in Taganskaya. At the end of the year, a stage was formed and sent to Yeniseisk. Vladyka refused to enter the churches there, occupied by living church members, and performed divine services right in his apartment. In Yeniseisk, he also worked in a local hospital, famous for his medical skills.

Having learned about the 75th anniversary of the great physiologist, academician Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, the exiled professor sent him a congratulatory telegram on August 28, 1925.

Preserved full text Pavlov’s response telegram to Voino-Yasenetsky:

“Your Eminence and dear comrade! I am deeply touched by your warm greeting and I offer my heartfelt gratitude for it. In hard time Full of persistent sorrow for those who think and feel like human beings, there remains only one support - fulfilling, to the best of one’s ability, the duty one has assumed. With all my heart I sympathize with you in your martyrdom. “Ivan Pavlov, sincerely devoted to you.”

Yes, an unusual situation has arisen: Archbishop Luka is in exile in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, and the ideas of professor-surgeon V.F. Voino-Yasenetsky are spreading not only in the Soviet Union, but also abroad. In 1923, the German medical journal "Deutsch Zeitschrift" published his article on a new method of artery ligation when removing the spleen (English) Russian, and in 1924, in the "Bulletin of Surgery" - a message about the good results of early surgical treatment of large purulent processes joints.

An exile followed - to Turukhansk, where Vladyka again continued his medical and pastoral activities. The GPU sent him to the village of Plakhino between Igarka and Dudinka. But due to the demands of the residents of Turukhansk, Professor Voino-Yasenetsky had to be returned to the local hospital. In January 1926, the exile ended, and Bishop Luka returned to Tashkent.

After his return, the bishop was deprived of the right to engage in teaching activities. Metropolitan Sergius tried to transfer him first to Rylsk, then to Yelets, then to Izhevsk (apparently, according to instructions from above). In the fall of 1927, Luka was Bishop of Yeletsk and vicar of the Oryol province for about a month. Then, on the advice of Metropolitan Arseny, Bishop Luke submitted a request for retirement. On Sundays and holidays he served in church and received the sick at home. On May 6, 1930, he was again arrested on charges of murdering Professor Mikhailovsky and transferred to Arkhangelsk. There he discovered a new method for treating purulent wounds, which became a sensation. The saint was summoned to Leningrad and Kirov personally persuaded him to take off his cassock. But the bishop refused and was returned to exile. Released in May 1933.

He arrived in Moscow only at the end of November and immediately appeared at the office of the Locum Tenens Metropolitan Sergius. Vladyka himself recalled it this way: “His secretary asked me if I would like to occupy one of the vacant bishop’s sees.” But the professor, yearning for real work in exile, wanted to found the Institute of Purulent Surgery, he wanted to pass on his enormous medical experience. In the spring of 1934, Voino-Yasenetsky returned to Tashkent, and then moved to Andijan, where he operated, lectured, and headed the department of the Institute of Emergency Care. Here he falls ill with papatachi fever, which threatens loss of vision (a complication was caused by retinal detachment of the left eye). Two operations on his left eye did not bring results; the bishop is going blind in one eye.

In the fall of 1934, he published the monograph “Essays on Purulent Surgery,” which gained worldwide fame. For several years, Professor Voino-Yasenetsky headed the main operating room at the Tashkent Institute of Emergency Care. On July 24, 1937, he was arrested for the third time on charges of creating a “Counter-revolutionary church-monastic organization” that aimed to overthrow Soviet power and restore capitalism. Archbishop of Tashkent and Central Asia Boris (Shipulin), Archimandrite Valentin (Lyakhodsky) and many other priests were also involved in this case. In prison, the bishop is interrogated using the “conveyor belt” method (13 days without sleep) with the requirement to sign reports of denunciations against innocent people. The bishop goes on a hunger strike that lasts 18 days, but does not sign a false confession. Valentin Feliksovich was sentenced to five years of exile in the Krasnoyarsk Territory (and Archbishop Boris (Shipulin), who signed the confession and falsely denounced Bishop Luka, was shot).

Since March 1940, he has been working as a surgeon in exile at the regional hospital in Bolshaya Murta, which is 110 kilometers from Krasnoyarsk (the local church was blown up, and the bishop prayed in the grove). At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, he sent a telegram to the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Mikhail Kalinin:

“I, Bishop Luka, Professor Voino-Yasenetsky... being a specialist in purulent surgery, can provide assistance to soldiers at the front or rear, where I am entrusted. I ask you to interrupt my exile and send me to the hospital. At the end of the war, I am ready to return to exile . Bishop Luke."

Since October 1941 - consultant to all hospitals in the Krasnoyarsk Territory and chief surgeon of the evacuation hospital, did the most complex operations on wounds with suppuration (in Krasnoyarsk school No. 10, where one of the hospitals was located, a museum was opened in 2005).

Serving at the Krasnoyarsk Department

On December 27, 1942, the Moscow Patriarchate made a determination: “The Right Reverend Archbishop Luke (Voino-Yasenetsky), without interrupting his work in military hospitals in his specialty, is entrusted with the management of the Krasnoyarsk diocese with the title of Archbishop of Krasnoyarsk.” He achieved the restoration of one small church on the outskirts of Nikolaevka (5-7 kilometers from Krasnoyarsk). Due to this and the virtual absence of priests during the year, Vladyka served the all-night vigil only on major holidays and evening services Holy Week, and before the usual Sunday services he read the all-night vigil at home or in the hospital. Petitions were sent to him from all over the diocese to restore churches. The archbishop sent them to Moscow, but received no answer.

In September 1943, elections for the Patriarch took place, at which Bishop Luka was also present. However, he soon refused to participate in the activities of the Synod in order to have time to operate on a larger number of wounded. Later he began to ask for a transfer to the European part of the USSR, citing his deteriorating health in conditions Siberian climate. The local administration did not want to let him go, tried to improve his conditions - he settled him in a better apartment, opened a small church in the suburbs of Krasnoyarsk, delivered the latest medical literature, including on foreign languages. At the end of 1943, he published the second edition of "Essays on Purulent Surgery", and in 1944 - the monograph "On the Course of Chronic Empyema and Chondrates" and the book "Late Resections of Infected Gunshot Wounds of Joints", for which he was awarded the Stalin Prize of the first degree. The fame of the great surgeon is growing, they are already writing about him in the USA.

Serving at the Tambov Department

In February 1944, the Military Hospital moved to Tambov, and Luka headed the Tambov Department, where the Bishop dealt with the issue of restoring churches and achieved success: by the beginning of 1946, 24 parishes were opened May 4, 1944 during a conversation at the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church under the Council of People's Commissars USSR Patriarch Sergius with the Chairman of the Council Karpov, the Patriarch raised the question of the possibility of his moving to the Tula diocese, motivated this need by the illness of Archbishop Luke (malaria); in turn, Karpov “informed Sergius of a number of incorrect claims on the part of Archbishop Luke, his incorrect actions and attacks.” In a memo to the People's Commissar of Health of the RSFSR Andrei Tretyakov dated May 10, 1944, Karpov, pointing out a number of actions committed by Archbishop Luka that “violated the laws of the USSR” (hung an icon in the surgical department of evacuation hospital No. 1414 in Tambov, performed religious rites in the office premises of the hospital before performing operations ; On March 19, he appeared at an interregional meeting of doctors of evacuation hospitals dressed in bishop’s vestments, sat down at the chairman’s table and in the same vestments made a report on surgery and other things), indicated to the People’s Commissar that “the Regional Health Department (Tambov) should have given an appropriate warning to Professor Voino- Yasenetsky and not allow the illegal actions set forth in this letter."

He achieved the restoration of the Church of the Intercession in Tambov. He was highly respected among the parishioners, who did not forget the bishop even after his transfer to Crimea.

In February 1945, Patriarch Alexy I awarded him the right to wear a diamond cross on his hood. Writes the book "Spirit, Soul and Body".

Serving at the Crimean See

On April 5, 1946, Patriarch Alexy signed a decree on the transfer of Archbishop Luke to Simferopol. There the archbishop openly entered into conflicts with the local commissioner for religious affairs; also punished priests for any negligence during worship and fought against parishioners’ avoidance of performing church sacraments. He actively preached (in 1959, Patriarch Alexy proposed awarding Archbishop Luke the degree of Doctor of Theology).

For the books “Essays on Purulent Surgery” (1943) and “Late Resections for Infected Gunshot Wounds of Joints” (1944) in 1946 he was awarded the Stalin Prize of the first degree (200,000 rubles), 130,000 rubles of which he donated to orphanages.

He continued to provide medical care despite his deteriorating health. The professor received patients at home, helping everyone, but demanding to pray and go to church. The bishop ordered some sick people to be treated only with prayer - and the sick people recovered.

During these years, Voino-Yasenetsky did not stand aloof from socio-political life. Already in 1946, he actively acted as a fighter for peace, the national liberation movement of the colonial peoples. In 1950, in the article “Let's Protect the World by Serving Good,” he wrote:

“Christians cannot be on the side of the colonial powers that are committing bloody lies in Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaya, supporting the horrors of fascism in Greece, Spain, raping the will of the people in South Korea, those who are hostile to the democratic system, which implements... the elementary demands of justice, cannot be called Christians."

In 1955 he became completely blind, forcing him to leave surgery. Since 1957 he has been dictating memoirs. In post-Soviet times, the autobiographical book “I fell in love with suffering...” was published.

The inscription was carved on the tombstone:

Archbishop Luke Voino-Yasenetsky

18(27).IY.77 - 19(11).YI.61

Doctor of Medicine, Professor of Surgery, Laureate.

Archbishop Luke (Voino-Yasenetsky) was buried at the First Simferopol Cemetery, to the right of the Church of All Saints in Simferopol. After canonization by the Orthodox Church in the host of new martyrs and confessors of Russia (November 22, 1995), his relics were transferred to the Holy Trinity Cathedral (March 17-20, 1996). The former grave of St. Luke is also revered by believers.

Children

All the professor’s children followed in his footsteps and became doctors: Mikhail and Valentin became doctors of medical sciences; Alexey - Doctor of Biological Sciences; Elena is an epidemiologist. Grandsons and great-grandchildren also became scientists (for example, Vladimir Lisichkin - academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences). It is worth noting that the saint never (even after accepting the episcopal rank) tried to introduce them to religion, believing that faith in God is a personal matter for everyone.

Brief biography of St. Luke (Voino-Yasenetsky), Archbishop of Simferopol and Crimea

Valentin Feliksovich Voino-Yasenetsky was born on April 27, 1877 in Kerch. His father was of noble origin, but the family had long been impoverished, and Felix Stanislavovich kept a pharmacy in the city and thereby earned his living. He confessed Catholic faith. The saint wrote that his father “was a man of an amazingly pure soul, he saw nothing bad in anyone, he trusted everyone...” Mother - Maria Dmitrievna, a deeply religious woman, raised five children in Orthodoxy.

High school student Valentin Voino-Yasenetsky

In 1889, the Voino-Yasenetskys left Kerch, lived for a short time in Kherson and Chisinau, then chose Kyiv as their place of residence.

Valentin graduated from the Second Kyiv Gymnasium, then the Kyiv Art School; he drew well from childhood. At first, the young man decided to become a painter, preparing for exams at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, but, carried away by the teachings of L.N. Tolstoy, decided that he could be more useful to people in a different field. He wrote to Tolstoy in Yasnaya Polyana, asking permission to come, but received no answer. Later, Tolstoy’s book “What Is My Faith?” was published, which Valentin angrily rejected as heresy. The young man did not change his desire to choose the path of serving the people.

After a period of doubts and searches, in 1898 Valentin Voino-Yasenetsky entered the medical faculty in order “to be useful to the peasants who were so poorly provided with medical care.” He studied well, especially excelled in anatomy, and his fellow students predicted that he would become a professor. However, after brilliantly passing his final exams and receiving a diploma with honors, Voino-Yasenetsky decided to become a zemstvo doctor.

Even before that, he went to work at the military hospital of the Kyiv Red Cross in Chita - he was working Russo-Japanese War. There he gained his first experience in practical surgery, and after finishing his work he married the hospital’s nurse, Anna Vasilievna Lanskaya, whom he met in the Kiev military hospital. His deeply religious wife shared his desire to be a “peasant doctor” and helped him in his work.

At the invitation of one of the wounded officers in 1904, the Voino-Yasenetskys went to the Simbirsk province, and Valentin Feliksovich began working in the zemstvo hospital in the city of Ardatov. However, due to the young surgeon’s high demands on medical personnel, he had to change his place of work, and in 1905 Valentin Feliksovich moved to the village of Verkhniy Lyubazh in the Kursk province to head a small local hospital. He worked as a surgeon, an obstetrician-gynecologist, and a pediatrician, and fought epidemics. He showed great perseverance and dedication, his surgical skill grew, and soon the fame of the young surgeon’s successful eye operations spread not only throughout the Kursk province, but also throughout all neighboring ones.

As he himself wrote, excessive fame forced him to move in 1907 to the Fatezh hospital, where there was a hospital with 60 beds and a surgery department where he could provide assistance more sick. During these years, despite being extremely busy, he found time to keep an eye on scientific literature, including in foreign languages, subscribed to many books and magazines. He was especially interested in the problems of pain management during operations - this area was not yet sufficiently developed.

In 1908, the young surgeon entered the externship of the Moscow Imperial University at the surgical clinic of Professor P.I. Dyakonova. At that time, the family already had two children - son Mikhail and daughter Elena. It was difficult for four of us to live in Moscow, and Anna Vasilyevna and the children went to visit her relatives, and Valentin Feliksovich began research at the clinic. Professor Dyakonov suggested that the young surgeon continue to search for new methods of pain relief, which were later called regional anesthesia. The research progressed successfully, but I had to leave it for a while to provide for my family.

In 1909, Valentin Feliksovich accepted an invitation to head the zemstvo hospital in the village of Romanovka, Balashov district, Saratov province, where, in addition to the salary, the chief doctor was entitled to leave for scientific work.

It was very expensive to travel from the Saratov province to Moscow, and besides, a third child was born in the family - son Alexey, the income was modest, and the family decided to move closer to the capital, to Pereslavl-Zalesskaya, where a vacancy for a chief physician opened up in the zemstvo hospital.

Valentin Feliksovich worked in Pereslavl-Zalessky for six and a half years, heading, in addition to the zemstvo, city and factory hospitals, and during the war, a military hospital. Born here in 1913 youngest son Valentin.

During these years V.F. Voino-Yasenetsky worked and for the first time in Russia applied new methods of regional anesthesia during operations on various organs. Every year he performed more than thousands of operations, continuing research on regional anesthesia and purulent surgery, which also interested him very much. He decided to summarize his experience in the book “Essays on Purulent Surgery,” and when he drew up the plan for this book and wrote the preface to it, he had the idea that by the end of the work the bishop’s name would appear on it.

At the end of 1915 V.F. Voino-Yasenetsky presented his work “Regional Anesthesia”, summarizing the experience of ten years of research and surgical practice, to the Academic Council of the Moscow Imperial University as a doctoral dissertation. The dissertation was published as a separate book,

The University of Warsaw awarded this work a gold medal and the Chojnicki Prize “for best essays, laying new way in medicine."

Misha and Valentin Voino-Yasenetsky in Pereslavl-Zalessky

In 1916, the surgeon Voino-Yasenetsky brilliantly defended his doctoral dissertation and became a doctor of medical sciences, who for the first time in Russia and the world developed new methods of regional anesthesia.

At the beginning of 1917, a misfortune happened in the family - Anna Vasilievna fell ill with tuberculosis. The couple decided to move to a place with more warm climate. Valentin Feliksovich received the position of chief physician and chief surgeon of the Tashkent City Hospital in February 1917, and in the spring the family moved to Tashkent. However, the time has come for unrest and famine. In Tashkent in 1919, an uprising of the Turkestan regiment broke out against the Bolsheviks; they wanted to deal with Valentin Feliksovich on false charges, but then they released him. This made such a grave impression on his wife, weakened by illness, that she soon died.

Persecution of the Orthodox Church began, and a wave of renovationism reached Tashkent. During the “trial” of the Bishop of Tashkent and Turkmenistan, Valentin Feliksovich made a heated speech in his defense. After the meeting, the bishop told the young doctor that he should become a priest, and the doctor immediately agreed. On the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord in 1921, he was ordained a priest by Bishop Innocent and became Archpriest Valentin.

After the death of his wife and sons Valentin and Mikhail in Tashkent

He continued his medical and teaching activities, gave lectures at the medical faculty in a cassock, with a cross on his chest, before surgery he always prayed and made the sign of the cross over the patient.

In the spring of 1923, Bishop Innokenty elevated Voino-Yasenetsky to the rank of bishop and secretly tonsured him into monasticism with the name Luke.

Less than three weeks after his first episcopal service, on June 10, 1923, Bishop Luke was arrested. By the grace of God, his children were taken into care by Sofya Sergeevna Beletskaya, a widow who replaced their mother. In his prison cell, Bishop Luke wrote a will to his flock, calling on them to remain faithful to Orthodoxy.

In prison, Bishop Luke finished the last chapter of the book “Essays on Purulent Surgery”, on title page he wrote: “Bishop Luke,” and remembered God’s prediction about this book.

The Tashkent authorities sentenced the bishop to exile, but sent the arrested man to Moscow to confirm the case. There Bishop Luke met Patriarch Tikhon and served with him.

On July 24, 1923, he was sent to Butyrka prison. The saint submitted an application asking to be allowed to treat the sick, which he was denied, so he was forced to limit himself to helping his cellmates. Before being sent to the camps, the prisoners were transferred to the Tagansk prison, where the saint, who had walked across all of Moscow and caught a cold, became seriously ill.

At the end of November, the convict went in a prisoner's carriage to Eastern Siberian exile on a convoy. In severe frost on January 18, 1924, a group of exiled prisoners arrived in Yeniseisk. The saint lived in a private apartment, provided medical care to the sick and secretly held divine services, declaring himself, according to the instructions of Patriarch Tikhon, the only legitimate bishop of Krasnoyarsk and Yenisei. The popularity and bold actions of Bishop Luke led to the fact that in the spring of 1924 he was arrested and deported under escort to the village of Khaya, which consisted of eight courtyards, lost in the taiga. On June 5, 1924, the saint returned to Yeniseisk, but in August he was prohibited from worshiping and was again sent to Turukhansk.

Tashkent City Hospital

The saint continued to work at the local hospital. However, following a denunciation in November, he was banned from serving and preaching, as well as from operating in a cassock. The bishop-surgeon wrote a letter of resignation from the Turukhansk hospital. The regional health department stood up for the exile, but in December a new criminal case was opened against him. The representative of the GPU called him from the hospital and informed him that he must immediately go into exile. Arctic Ocean and you have half an hour to get ready. In Plakhino's camp, which consisted of five huts, he lived in a room where, instead of frames, flat ice floes were attached to the outside. At the beginning of March 1925, exile to the Arctic Ocean in Plakhino ended prematurely. Residents of Turukhansk staged a riot after a patient died in the city hospital. The Turukhansk authorities hastened to bring the bishop-surgeon back.

He continued his work as a doctor, and on Sundays and holidays served and preached in the church, which became the reason for a new arrest and charges of anti-Soviet activities.

In January 1926, Bishop Luka returned from Krasnoyarsk to Tashkent, where he finally met the children, began working in the hospital and serving in the church.

However, Archpriest Andreev managed to restore the Patriarchal Locum Tenens Sergius against him and he sent an order to go to the Kursk region as a vicar, then to the city of Yelets as a vicar

Bishop of Oryol, and then to Izhevsk. Metropolitan Arseny of Novgorod advised the saint to submit a petition for retirement. Bishop Luke, exhausted by exile and prison, followed his advice in 1927, but later considered this path sinful.

April 23, 1930 V.F. Voino-Yasenetsky was again arrested on trumped-up charges in the case of Professor I.P. Mikhailovsky, and during interrogations they demanded his renunciation of the priesthood. Then the saint went on a hunger strike in protest. Bishop Luke went on hunger strike for 40 days, but this had no effect on the GPU workers.

In March 1931, having learned that Medgiz in Moscow had begun publishing his book “Essays on Purulent Surgery,” the saint turned to the head of the Secret Department of the GPU with a request to give him the opportunity to work on the book. In response, the head of the department issued a resolution: “Send urgently to the place of exile.”

Vladyka ended up in Kotlas, in the Makarikha camp - one of the most terrible camps of the Stalinist regime, where he worked in the camp hospital. Typhus was raging in Makarikha, and many were saved by the blessed hands of Bishop Luke, his sharp mind and Christ-loving heart.

This was followed by exile to Arkhangelsk, during which Saint Luke diagnosed himself with a tumor, which turned out to be benign, and asked the head of the secret department to go to Moscow for an operation, but he was sent to Leningrad.

In Leningrad, the saint met with the metropolitan, and then went to the monastery church, where, while reading the Gospel, he experienced a mystical revelation, which he perceived as a reminder from the Lord about the path of service he had abandoned.

Bishop Luke with his flock in Tashkent

Upon returning to Arkhangelsk, they again began to convince him to renounce his priesthood, they promised to release him and give him a see in Moscow. The saint replied that he would never remove the rank of bishop.

At the end of 1933 he was finally released. The saint returned to Tashkent and began working as a consultant in the Andijan hospital. In August 1934, I had to go to Moscow for serious eye treatment; two operations were performed, but the train in which my son Mikhail was traveling crashed. The saint, without completing the treatment, went to Leningrad to help him, and this led to the loss of vision in his left eye.

In the fall of 1934, the saint’s book “Essays on Purulent Surgery” was published, which received high marks from prominent Soviet scientists, becoming a guiding thread for doctors for many generations to come.

In 1935–1936, he lived in Tashkent relatively calmly, but his soul yearned for church service.

When 1937 came, his faith was subjected to new tests, in which the saint withstood. July 23, 1937 - arrest again. He was subjected to conveyor belt torture twice for 13 days, he began to hallucinate, but he firmly answered the investigators that the Soviet government was his enemy insofar as it persecuted the Orthodox Church.

He spent about eight months in a regional prison in very difficult conditions, continuing to help the sick. Despite torture and interrogation, the necessary confessions were not obtained from him. The case was sent to Moscow for a Special Meeting.

On February 13, 1940, the NKVD adopted a resolution “to exile V.F. Voino-Yasenetsky to the Krasnoyarsk Territory for a period of five years.” In the village of Bolshaya Murta, about 130 versts from Krasnoyarsk, he lived in poverty without a permanent apartment, and could barely walk from weakness due to poor nutrition.

When the war began, Bishop Luka immediately sent a telegram addressed to the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Council M.I. Kalinin with a request to end his exile and send him to a hospital, since he could provide assistance to soldiers at the front or rear, and at the end of the war he expressed his readiness to return to exile.

In July, the chief surgeon of the Krasnoyarsk Territory was sent to Bolshaya Murta, who transported the saint to Krasnoyarsk, where he worked as the chief surgeon of the evacuation hospital for 15–15 for two years.

In 1942, the saint was allowed to go to Irkutsk for a meeting of chief surgeons, where his colleagues “gave him a real triumph,” because during these difficult years he made several new discoveries. In 1943, the Holy Synod equated his treatment of the wounded with valiant episcopal service and elevated him to the rank of archbishop and appointed him archbishop of Krasnoyarsk.

In 1944, the saint was appointed to the Tambov See and moved to Tambov. As the chief surgeon of the hospital, he oversaw about 150 hospitals, while finding the time and energy to receive at home those who came to him from distant villages many kilometers away.

In December, the archbishop-surgeon was awarded the medal “For Valiant Labor in the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945,” and in February 1946, Patriarch of All Rus' Alexy awarded the saint the right to wear a diamond cross on his hood, the highest bishop’s award.

On December 2, 1946, Professor Valentin Feliksovich Voino-Yasenetsky was awarded the Stalin Prize of the 1st degree for the scientific development of new surgical methods for the treatment of purulent diseases and wounds. In 1946, the second edition of “Essays on Purulent Surgery” was published, which was enthusiastically received by the medical community.

In May 1946, Archbishop Luke was transferred to the Crimean diocese. In post-war Crimea, he was faced with unsettled life, poverty of the local population and many sects. But he courageously continued his ministry, trying to restore order in the diocese.

Vladyka Luka finally lost his sight and could only move with the help of his loved ones

At this time, Saint Luke's vision deteriorated catastrophically. He applied for treatment to the Institute of Eye Diseases in Moscow and underwent surgery with Filatov, but this did not give a positive result.

Since he was forbidden to engage in medical activities in a cassock, and he categorically refused to take it off, he was no longer invited to give reports and lectures on medicine. The saint devoted almost all his time to preaching the Gospel and preached daily in cathedral the city of Simferopol and parish churches.

Contrary to the advice of Patriarch Alexy, Archbishop Luke did not leave medicine and began reprinting “Essays on Purulent Surgery” and “Regional Anesthesia.”

Bishop Luke (center) after a service in one of the churches in Crimea

In 1954, large-scale atheist propaganda began. The half-blind archbishop continued to preach the word of God. Denunciations against him poured in to the local MGB authorities.

In 1955, Vladyka lost his sight. He moved gropingly, gropingly signing papers. No longer able to operate, he blessed patients and healed with his faith and the grace of the Holy Spirit.

In the fall of 1956, the 3rd edition of “Essays on Purulent Surgery” was published.

On April 27, 1957, on the day of the Bishop’s 80th birthday, solemn services were held in all churches of Crimea, and the Patriarch congratulated him with a warm telegram and sent an icon of St. Alexis.

On June 11, 1961, Archbishop Luke departed to the Lord. He was buried in a small church cemetery, where for many years people came in the hope of healing and often received it.

On November 22, 1995, Archbishop Luke of Simferopol and Crimea was canonized as a saint of the Orthodox Church. His relics were transferred to the Holy Trinity Cathedral on the night of March 17-18, 1996. The glorification of Saint Luke of Crimea took place on May 24–25, 1996 in the Simferopol and Crimean diocese.

His memorial days are June 11 and March 18. In the akathist, where he is called “the mentor of all doctors,” it is sung:

“By the power of the Grace of God, even in your temporal life you received the gift, Saint Luke, to heal ailments, so that you, who diligently flow to you, may be vouchsafed the healing of bodily ailments and, especially, spiritual ones, crying out to God: Alleluia...”

Transfer of the relics of St. Luke, 1996 G.