St. Luke of Simferopol
St. Luke (Valentin Voino-Yasenetsky, 1877-1961) was a brilliant surgeon and professor of medicine who was ordained a priest in 1921 and consecrated a bishop in 1923, at the height of Soviet persecution.
He endured eleven years of prisons and Siberian exile for his faith, yet continued to operate, teach, and write; his Essays on Purulent Surgery earned the Stalin Prize in 1946, the same year he became Archbishop of Simferopol and Crimea. He served both altar and operating table until his repose on June 11, 1961, and was glorified in 1996, later numbered among the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia.
I have come to love suffering, which so wonderfully purifies the soul.
In truth, I have not actually seen God. But I have performed many operations on the brain, and upon opening the skull, have never seen the mind within it. Nor have I ever found the conscience there either.
I cut up people in order to save them; for what reason do you, citizen people's prosecutor, cut people?
For a surgeon, there must not be an 'instance,' but only a living, suffering person.
I felt it my duty to preach in defense of our abused Savior, and to praise His boundless mercy toward humankind.
Troparion · Tone 1
O herald of the way of salvation, confessor and archpastor of the Crimean flock, faithful keeper of the traditions of the fathers, unshakeable pillar and teacher of Orthodoxy, pray unceasingly to Christ our Savior to grant salvation and strong faith to Orthodox Christians, O holy hierarch Luke, physician wise in God.
Kontakion · Tone 1
Like a star shining with light, O hierarch, you shone with virtues and led a blameless life like the Angels; therefore you were honored with the rank of a bishop, and though you suffered much persecution from the atheists, you remained unshakable in your faith, healing many with your medical wisdom. Therefore your revered relics were found in the bowels of the earth, and the Lord has glorified you, so that all the faithful may cry out to you: Rejoice, Father and Hierarch Luke, the boast and bulwark of the Crimean land.
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