One of the most dramatic periods in our ecclesiastical history is the 20th century, where many Orthodox Churches were severely tested by Marxist regimes. Thousands of clergy of all ranks as well as millions of believers were persecuted, tortured and lost their lives, for the sole reason that they believed in God and were Orthodox Christians. One of these thousands of clergy was Saint Luke the Doctor, Archbishop of Simferopol and Crimea.
He was born in 1877 in Kerch, Crimea and his secular name was Valentin YaseneskiHis father was a papist and his mother was Orthodox, who raised him formally Orthodox. They had moved to Kiev, where Valentin studied medicineHe received his degree in 1903 as an ophthalmologist.
In 1904, the Russo-Japanese War, where Valentin found himself at the front as a successful military surgeon. There he met his wife Anna Vasilievna Lanskaya, with whom he had four children. After the end of the war, he worked as a doctor in various areas. His successes made him famous. He studied and applied pioneering methods of anesthesia, while in the field of ophthalmology he was a pioneer. He was particularly concerned with the treatment of pyogenic infections.
In 1917 he was elected professor at Tashkent UniversityBut in the same year the revolution of the Bolshevik, which declared a relentless persecution against the Church. The faithful were subjected to all kinds of persecution. Valentin had already discovered Orthodox spirituality and had become a faithful Orthodox Christian, and for this reason he became a target of atheist Marxists. At the University he openly expressed his faith, provoking the indignation and hatred of his atheist colleagues. A nurse slandered him and the regime arrested him. Fortunately, miraculously, he was acquitted and released. However, his wife died of tuberculosis and he was forced to entrust the care of his children to the faithful nurse. Sofia Sergeevna.
From the first days, the atheist regime created a pseudo-church, the so-called "Living Church", to control the faithful, to divide them and to distance them from the true Church. Valentine remained faithful to the true martyred and persecuted Church. After the valiant defense of the Archbishop of Tashkent Innocentius, he suggested that he be ordained as a presbyter. He accepted and on 21 – 1 -1921 his ordination took place. At the same time he continued to work at the University. In 1923, after his removal Innocentius was elected archbishop of Tashkent, after first becoming a monk, taking the name Luke. Traveled secretly to Penjikent to receive his ordination as a bishop.
This was considered an anti-establishment act, he was arrested and imprisoned. In prison he completed his pioneering scientific work: "Essays on the surgery of pyogenic infections", whose publication was banned because the author insisted on writing his episcopal status on the cover! Then it was decided to move it to Moscow, where he suffered his first heart attack, and then in Siberia in town Yeniseisk and later 2000 kilometers away, in the city Turukhansk. His living conditions were tragic, his clothing light and his food scarce. Despite all this, Luke
offered his medical services free of charge to the people of the area. This did not please the atheists of the regime, who moved him above the Arctic Circle, to the village Side. His health deteriorated dangerously. He stayed for two months and then returned to Turukhansk, due to a demand from the residents. After eight months, he was released.
He returned to Tashkent, but faced incredible persecution from the regime, because he did not want to abandon the clerical form. He was not allowed to practice medicine while wearing the cassock. Nor to enter the operating room while wearing the Holy Cross. He was forced to resign from the episcopal throne and was then taken back to Northern Russia as an exile. There he lost his sight in one eye. His writings were published without his will, and without his hierarchal status. He was released and settled in Leningrad, where he practiced medicine for free. This annoyed the regime, who arrested him again and exiled him to Siberia.
In June 1941, Hitler's troops invaded Russia. The exiled bishop and physician asked to volunteer for the front. There he showed unprecedented heroism and self-sacrifice, saving thousands of wounded. The Party recognized his contribution and made him chief physician and head of 150 military hospitals. After the end of the war, in 1946 he was awarded the Stalin Prize, for his contribution to the homeland and science.
At the age of 70 he became archbishop Simferopol and Crimea, undertaking a titanic pastoral and charitable work. He tried with incredible difficulties to reorganize the local church. The Party insiders fought him fiercely. They did not allow him to practice medicine in a public hospital, so he was forced to practice medicine voluntarily, without pay. He preached day and night and wrote. However, his eyesight began to decline dramatically. In 1956 he became permanently blind. In the meantime, a new wave of persecution against the Church had been declared by Nikita Khrushchev. Once again, the sick, suffering and blind bishop Loukas was in the spotlight. On Christmas 1960, he officiated for the last time. On All Saints' Sunday, June 11, 1961, he slept peacefully. Despite all the obstacles put up by the regime, thousands of people participated in his funeral procession, so that his funeral was reminiscent of a popular revolution. In the people's consciousness, he was already a saint. In November 1995, he was canonized and in March 1996, his relics, which were fragrant, were brought back. His memory is honored in 11 June and is considered miraculous.
Saint Bishop Luke the Physician is a rare voice of confession in the troubled 20ο century, where the antichrist Marxist ideology had become a political power and had sworn to annihilate the Church of Christ. He could be characterized as one of the main representatives of the Church, who raised his weak (physically) stature, to the temporarily omnipotent red tyrants. History has ruled: his own heroic resistance, together with those of many thousands of fighters, defeated the arrogant Christian fighters and sent them irrevocably to the most spidery time dungeon of history, forever, to remind future generations that it is cruel to him who kicks pointed nails with bare feet, "kicking hard towards the centers" (Acts 26,14:XNUMX). That the Church is invincible and "the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it" (Matthew 16,18)!
Photo By PereslavlFoto – File:Voino-yasenetsky-zarbarak-doska-3141.jpg, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=156321252, https://el.wikipedia.org/wiki/
