The Lord constantly sends saints to earth to strengthen the spirit of believers. They set an example of how to put the biblical commandments into practice. This is exactly what Saint Luke was, whose icons are very popular today. People turn to him during illnesses.

Biography

At first, the future saint was not going to connect his life with the church, especially since during his youth they fought against religion in every possible way and mocked it. The young doctor had a family and a job. But after the death of his wife, he began to often attend divine services and strongly believed in the Lord. Over time, he was offered to become a priest, he agreed. On the icons, Saint Luke is depicted in the vestments of a bishop. He really for a long time was a bishop.

For his views, the saint was exiled to camps, where he continued to heal people. He helped the weak all his life, performed many thousands of operations, restored people's sight and more. He even did several significant scientific works, the results of which are still used by doctors all over the world.

• 1923 - takes monastic vows with the name Luke (in honor of the apostle).
• 1941 - consulted doctors in military hospitals, was the chief surgeon.
• 1942 - receives the rank of archbishop.
• Behind scientific work awarded the Stalin Prize.

The last years of his life he served in Crimea, raising the diocese literally from the ruins left after the war. There were few clergy, the churches were destroyed. The saint devoted all his strength to restoring the Church, and when he returned home, people who needed help were already waiting for him. The righteous man did not refuse anyone, nor did he take payment from anyone. Many believed that healing could be achieved if only by touching the hem of the saint's robe.

Icons of Saint Luke

How does turning to the righteous help? Of course, first of all, those who have vision diseases remember him. In the images the saint is depicted already in mature age, with shoulder-length gray hair and a bushy beard. Right hand he blesses those praying - this is how many bishops are portrayed, since their job is to care for the believers. Through them, the Lord reminds us of His love for people.

In his left hand he holds the Gospel or a staff - a symbol of a bishop; it is also a biblical symbol that shows that its owner is blessed by God for pastoral service. There is an image in which the saint is depicted only in a white cassock, with a panagia on his chest. He is captured at the table during scientific work.

Also, the icon sometimes contains a set of surgical instruments - this indicates the type of activity of the saint. He not only saved lives, but often saved people from disability. After all, in those days medicine was just developing and many methods were unavailable ordinary people.

In what troubles do people pray to St. Luke?

• when they want to get rid of bodily illnesses;
• to strengthen faith;
• before an upcoming surgical operation;
• women ask for a normal pregnancy.

There are many testimonies about healings that took place at the saint’s grave. His relics rest in Simferopol, this is the last place of ministry of the saint. In 1995, he was recognized as a locally revered saint, special prayers were compiled, and canonical icons were painted.

In many Orthodox churches there are icons of St. Luke, but if not, it doesn’t matter. You can purchase it for your home and pray in front of it. The relics remain in the Trinity Cathedral in Simferopol. They were found in 1996. Now the cathedral is located on the territory of a women's monastic monastery.

In 2000, Saint Luke was canonized as a confessor - after all, he never renounced his faith, even coming to surgery in vestments. There were always icons hanging in the room; he always prayed and baptized his patients. Holy Confessor Luke, pray to God for us!

Prayer to Saint Luke

O all-blessed confessor, holy saint, our Father Luke, great servant of Christ. With tenderness, we bend the knee of our hearts, and falling to the race of your honest and multi-healing relics, like the children of our father, we pray to you with all diligence: hear us sinners and bring our prayer to the merciful and humane God, to whom you now stand in the joy of the saints and with the faces 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 for us to the omnipotent God, in eternal life we ​​will be worthy with you to constantly glorify the Consubstantial and Indivisible Trinity, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Icon of St. Luke - what it helps with, where it is, meaning was last modified: May 26th, 2017 by Bogolub

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Miracle of St. Luke

Even bright and joyful late autumn and in winter Simferopol is, first of all, the Holy Trinity Cathedral. And in the Holy Trinity Cathedral there is a shrine with the relics of St. Luke (Voino-Yasenetsky).

I have wanted to visit St. Luke for a long time, but never had the opportunity - and finally, the long-awaited meeting. I, of course, knew that the relics of saints were fragrant, but what I felt as I leaned over the shrine of St. Luke cannot be expressed in words. A strong, indescribable aroma rose from the crayfish...

A significant part of the life of St. Luke, who was born on April 27, 1877 in Kerch, is connected with Crimea. In the world he bore the name Valentin Feliksovich Voino-Yasenetsky. An unusually talented surgeon, he was one of the first in Russia to perform complex operations on the bile ducts, intestines, stomach, kidneys, operated on the heart and brain, and literally restored sight to blind people. Even when he was operating in a rural hospital in the Kursk province, people from neighboring provinces gathered to see him. In his autobiography, the Saint describes the incident: “A young beggar, blind from early childhood, received his sight after an operation. About two months later, he gathered many blind people from all over the area, and they all came to me in a long line, leading each other by the sticks and drinking tea of ​​healing.”

Voino-Yasenetsky achieved fame and glory as a famous surgeon. But he saw his life as serving people, and God truly led him Heavenly ways. The Lord sent sorrows to His chosen one, purifying his soul for high hierarchical service. The tests began back in 1917, when his 38-year-old wife Anna Vasilyevna died after a transient consumption, leaving four children in his arms.

In 1920, one of the speeches of professor of medicine Voino-Yasenetsky at a theological meeting was heard by Bishop of Tashkent and Turkestan Innokenty (Pustynsky). Speech on topics Holy Scripture Vladyka was so impressed that he immediately turned to Voino-Yasenetsky: “Doctor, you need to be a priest!” Saint Luke had no thought about the priesthood, but he accepted these words as God’s call and, without thinking, said: “Okay, Master! I will be a priest if it pleases God!” This happened at the same time when other clergy, fearing reprisals, were deprived of their ranks.

In a cassock and with a cross on his chest, he lectured on topographic anatomy and operative surgery. An icon hung in the corner of his operating room, and he never began an operation without prayer. All week he worked as the chief surgeon of the Tashkent city hospital, and on Sundays he served in the cathedral. He categorically forbade his flock from visiting churches occupied by “living churchmen.” In the most difficult times for the Church, Father Valentin showed the determination characteristic only of great ascetics. In 1923, the ruling Bishop Innocent disappeared from Tashkent. Ahead of the arrival of the appointed renovationist bishop, Father Valentin united all the priests who remained faithful to Patriarch Tikhon and convened a congress of the clergy. The people of God, as in the first centuries of Christianity, themselves placed a Bishop over themselves. Bishop Andrei of Ufa (in the world Prince Ukhtomsky) was in Tashkent, who approved the election of priest Valentin as Bishop and secretly tonsured him as a monk with the name Luke.

An absurd accusation was brought against Vladyka Luke “of connections with the Orenburg counter-revolutionary Cossacks and of espionage for the British.” Taganskaya prison in Moscow, then Yeniseisk, Turukhansk... Wherever Vladyka appeared, church life revived there. And in exile, Vladyka performed a lot of surgeries; a list of patients for him was drawn up three months in advance. Once he restored sight to an entire family of blind people. Of the seven people, six began to see. His activities irritated not only the authorities, but also local doctors, who were losing their usual earnings. The Bishop recalls that one day, having fallen into despondency, he poured out his murmur and impatience in prayer: “And suddenly I saw that Jesus Christ depicted in the image sharply turned His Most Pure Face away from me. I was horrified and desperate and did not dare look at the icon anymore. Like a beaten dog, I left the altar and went to the summer church, where on the choir I saw the book of the Apostle. I mechanically opened it and began to read the first thing that caught my eye... The text had a wonderful effect on me. They exposed my folly and the impudence of murmuring against God, and at the same time confirmed the promise of the liberation I was impatiently awaiting. I returned to the altar of the Winter Church and saw with joy... that the Lord Jesus Christ was again looking at me with a bright and gracious gaze.”

Liberation came in 1926. However, a second exile soon followed - to Arkhangelsk, where Vladyka again worked as a doctor and even developed a new method for treating purulent wounds. He was summoned to Leningrad, Kirov himself persuaded him to remove his rank and become director of the institute. However, the faithful confessor of Christ did not agree to this and, moreover, did not agree to print his book without indicating his rank. Is it surprising that the second exile was soon followed by a new arrest and a new exile, this time to Krasnoyarsk. In October 1941, Bishop Luke was appointed consultant to all hospitals Krasnoyarsk Territory and the chief surgeon of one of the evacuation hospitals. Vladyka continued to work on “Essays on Purulent Surgery.” In mid-1942, his exile ended, the Patriarchal Locum Tenens Metropolitan Sergius elevated him to the rank of Archbishop and appointed him to the Krasnoyarsk See.

Devoting a lot of energy to the organization of the Krasnoyarsk diocese, the sixty-year-old Bishop worked eight to nine hours a day as a doctor, performing four to five operations daily!

In 1944, Archbishop Luka was transferred to the Tambov See, and two years later - to the Crimean See. In Crimea, the gifts of God given to him, including clairvoyance and miracles, were most fully revealed. Anastasia Demidova scalded both legs in a boiling tank. The council of surgeons decided to amputate the legs. Thanks to the Lord’s prayers and his surgical skill, the matter was avoided without amputation. Now the woman is alive and completely healthy, and gratefully remembers her savior in her prayers. The hopelessly ill Semyon Trofimovich Kamenskoy asked Vladyka to be present at his operation.

- Do you believe in God? - asked Saint Luke.

“I believe, Vladyka, but I don’t go to Church.”

- Pray, I bless you and remove you from the operation. For fifteen years you will not have any illness.

This is what happened through the prayers of the Saint.

One day they brought to the Lord a twelve-year-old boy whose tumor was hanging from his neck onto his chest. The Bishop forbade the operation and ordered his mother to bring him back in three days. The saint’s prayer was strong: three days later the mother brought her son to him without any trace of tumor.

Nun Alexandra told me in the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Simferopol how she received healing twice at the relics of St. Luke. The first time her hand was swollen. She went to the Trinity Cathedral, with the blessing of Priest Leonid, who was on duty at the shrine with the relics, she put her hand to the relics of the Saint - and after half an hour all the swelling subsided. The second time I caught a bad cold. I took the flower petals that stood near the shrine with the relics, made a foot bath at home with these petals - and everything immediately went away.

Saint Luke reposed on June 11, 1961 - on the feast of All Saints who shone in the Russian land and was buried in the fence of the Church of All Saints. There are many known cases of people being healed through prayers to St. Luke even before his canonization by the Orthodox Church. Saint Luke also helps those who are threatened with unjust punishment.

For almost 35 years the relics of the saint rested in the ground. After the decision was made to canonize the Saint, his relics were discovered in March 1996. Protodeacon Vasily Marushchak describes the events of that night as follows: “About two o’clock in the morning they opened the grave and began to remove the soil. The priests continuously sang dirges and stichera to the Cross (was Week of the Cross- V.M.). It was very cold, the piercing wind shook the old cemetery trees. But when Vladyka Lazar descended into the grave and raised the relics of the Saint with his own hands, the wind instantly died down and reverent silence reigned. The clergy and laity with lit candles, kneeling, tenderly sang the dirge “Holy God.” The priests brought the relics into the Church of All Saints. And at the walls of the temple, the demoniac screamed in a terrible voice: “Don’t torment me, Saint!..”

After three days, the incorrupt relics of the Saint were transferred to the Holy Trinity Cathedral. And here a real miracle happened: the photograph (see page 3) clearly shows that when the relics of the saint were brought into the cathedral, he showed his face to everyone through the mantle!

The glory of Saint Luke went beyond the borders of our country. Through his prayers, for example, miraculous healings took place in Greece, where he is highly revered. A boy, the son of the mayor of a small Greek town, was healed of a serious illness simply by placing a photograph of the Saint on his chest under his shirt. Then other people were healed in the same way. A delegation of Greek hierarchs has already arrived in Crimea. Now in Greece a new, pure silver shrine has been made for the relics of the Saint. Soon it, together with a new panagia and vestments, will be donated to the Crimean diocese.

The feat of Saint Luke is a feat of zealous standing in Orthodox faith in the troubled era of obvious and secret rebirths - is now especially relevant. And many of us today will say with hope and love: “St. Father Luke, pray to God for us!”

Vladimir Melnik

The obvious help of St. Luke

The obvious help of St. Luke. Teacher, director of the Center for Children's Creativity Valentina Andreevna Yashchuk (Crimea, Krasnogvardeyskoe urban-type settlement) tells the story: After suffering an ischemic stroke, a computed tomography scan showed on January 21, 2003 that a cyst was forming. I began to fervently pray to St. Luke. Exactly two months later, a repeat tomography was performed, after which the doctor asked whether I had had surgery to remove the cyst. I answered no. This question was caused by the fact that the operation was completely unnecessary: ​​the doctor concluded that there was no cyst at the time of the repeat tomography (March 21). I am grateful to St. Luke with all my heart for his obvious help and turn to him in prayer every day. (from the newspaper of the Simferopol and Crimean diocese “ORTHODOX TAVRIDA”, No. 8 (91) APRIL 2003)

Miracles of St. Luke in the hospital church. The times in which God destined us to live are called difficult and difficult. Other believers say more than that: we live in a time without grace. But I would like to tell you about a miracle, so that both believers and doubters will know about it, and testify: God is with us! He is still the same now and forever. The beginning of this story cannot be called joyful. Six months after the consecration of our home church of St. martyrs Cosmas and Damian, in the regional hospital. Mechnikov, an ambulance delivered the priest Father Vladimir Tseshkovsky and his mother to the emergency room who had been injured in a car accident. The injuries were not easy, and the doctors performed more than one operation to get the priest and mother back on their feet. Many came to visit and encourage the sick, many prayed for their recovery. Our parish also prayed about this. And from the Crimean diocese, his brother (also a priest) came to Father Vladimir and brought the sick a cross - a reliquary with a particle of the relics of the recently canonized saint - saint - surgeon Luke Voino-Yasenetsky. Through the efforts of doctors and the prayerful intercession of St. Luke, Fr. Vladimir began to recover. And already in the first week of Great Lent, he came to church every day - still on crutches, but without outside help. At the Great Canon of St. Andrei Kritsky Fr. Vladimir, not sparing himself, stood on his knees, like all the parishioners, and prayed. After a short time Fr. Vladimir and his mother left the hospital recovered. And in gratitude for the healing and as a prayerful memory, they left a cross in the hospital church - a reliquary, which was in their hospital room during their illness. Our temple is still very young, but from the very first day the Lord poured out His grace abundantly. Great shrines arrived at the temple. Bishop Irenaeus presented the Altar Cross with a particle of St. The Tree of the Holy Cross and a particle of the relics of the Holy Great Martyr and Victorious George. Particles of the relics of the new martyr were placed into the throne of the temple Grand Duchess Elizabeth and Hieromartyr Vladimir, Metropolitan of Kyiv. Particles of the relics of the Kiev-Pechersk saints arrived, new icons were painted. The temple was filled with shrines, among which the cross with the relics of St. Luke took a worthy place. The building in which our church is located is a surgical building. Every day the sick and their relatives come to the temple with their ailments and sorrows, turning to God and His saints. More and more often, not only patients, but also doctors came to pray to the relics of St. Luke to pray for a successful outcome of operations, testifying later that the Lord heard their prayers. Having many testimonies of God’s immediate help through the intercession of the holy surgeon, the rector of the temple, Fr. George ordered an icon of St. Luke to be painted. When the icon arrived at the temple, particles of the relics and vestments of the saint - the surgeon - were inserted into it. Some time has passed. People working in the temple, some parishioners and many sick people began to feel a rather strong fragrance in the temple. As a rule, it arose on weekdays with a small crowd of people praying in the church or during a sermon on Sundays and holidays . Reminiscent of the smell of the world, the fragrance moved in waves throughout the temple. Therefore, it was impossible to determine its source. Many have managed to get used to this miracle. Last summer, on July 17, an incident occurred that confirmed the assumption that previous events were miraculous. On the eighth floor of the surgical building, in the ENT-somatic department, a parishioner of the Trinity Cathedral, a student at the medical institute, Lyudmila K., was being treated. On this day, her neighbors, believing parishioners of the Transfiguration Cathedral, Pavel and Anna, visited her. As they climbed the central staircase, they heard a strong smell of church ointment or incense. The smell spread from the closed doors of the church. From behind the doors they heard prayer singing, distinguishing priestly exclamations and loud, harmonious singing of voices. Pavel says: “I walked up to the door and pulled the handle. The door was locked, there was no light coming through the frosted patterned glass, the temple was dark. I decided that Fr. George is serving a prayer service, and wanted to be there and pray. And since the door was closed and there was no lighting, I thought that they were serving a custom (i.e. private) prayer service for the health of one of the sick in the presence of only the people who ordered the prayer service. I decided not to disturb anyone and continued climbing the stairs. The smell floated upward, all the way to the eighth floor I needed.” It is worth noting that it was a Wednesday—a weekday. On Wednesday evenings it is always quiet in our church. There are no services, choir rehearsals on other days. In response to our testimony about this and the hint that perhaps Paul had heard a tape recording of church chants, he categorically noted that he could distinguish the recording from live singing, and that he had heard priestly exclamations at the prayer service and real church singing of the choir, and had no doubt, that a prayer service is being served in the church. Having come to a neighbor, Paul told about the prayer service. To which Lyudmila said that there had never been such a strong smell of incense on the eighth floor. And together they watched in amazement as the patients lying in the department opened the windows in the corridor, grumbling: “What, they made a fire out of incense in the church, we can’t breathe!” What needs to be done for such a strong smell to reach from the third floor to the eighth?” Pavel, Anna and Lyudmila went down to the third floor to the church. It was still dark there. The door was locked. The smell gradually dissipated. Early in the morning Lyudmila came to the temple with questions about yesterday's events. The watchman was surprised and said that nothing happened in the temple in the evening. But when I went to look at the icons, I saw that there was a drop of peace on the glass of the icon of St. Luke. Afterwards, many believers came to the temple to venerate the icon with the relics. They talked more and more about the grace-filled help and alleviation of the suffering of the sick who prayed at this icon. More than once the icon with relics showed itself to people. Before arriving at our temple miraculous icon Holy Mother of God“look at humility”, the day before, not only the icon of St. Luke, but even the dried wildflowers standing next to it, smelled fragrant in the temple. So rejoiced at the upcoming meeting with the Mother of God, the heavenly patron of the art of surgery, St. Luke. And when, having spent five hours on the territory of the hospital and in our church, the icon “Look at Humility” continued its procession through the city churches and the tired clergy returned to the church, priest Fr. Vasily N. He turned to us with a joyful smile: “Why is it that your church smells like Simferopol?” And although the icon was in the altar at that moment, he asked: “Do you really have a particle of the relics of St. Luke?” and told us about his visit to the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Simferopol. It’s probably worth saying that many who visited the Simferopol Cathedral, near the shrine with the relics of our holy contemporary, famous for his scientific works and the ascetic life of the professor of surgery and Archbishop Luke Voino-Yasenetsky, they recognized this holy fragrance, abundantly exuded by the incorruptible relics of the Crimean Saint. The abundant flow of grace healed more than one sick person both in Crimea and in our church. The presence of holiness is always felt in a particularly strong feeling of repentance that visits human souls upon contact with the inexhaustible grace of the Holy Spirit, poured out by the merciful God through the relics of His holy saints, who served the Lord and their neighbors with their entire earthly life. And we testify. That God's mercy towards us sinners has not diminished. And today the Lord is close to us. He hears the prayers of His suffering, sick, sorrowful people! Many patients and their relatives received relief from suffering and a quick recovery. We came to faith, to an understanding of the need for a repentant change in our entire life. And the disease, as believers say, “a visit from God,” turned people to God, to His Holy Orthodox Church, which testifies to its holiness with an inexhaustible sea of ​​miracles, turning people from unbelief to faith, from despair to hope, from callousness and selfishness to love for neighbor and God. The icon remains in our church to this day. Spiritually strengthens the sick, spreading a joyful, gracious fragrance after prayer - a greeting to us from the Heavenly Church of the holy saints of God, who stand for us before the heavenly King - our Lord Jesus Christ. The day of remembrance of St. Luke, Archbishop of Crimea (in the world of professor - surgeon Valentin Feliksovich Voino-Yasenetsky), is set on June 11 according to the new style. The first celebration of the saint's memory took place in 1996 at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Simferopol, Crimean diocese. About himself, Vladyka Luke left the memory of a zealous and pious archpastor. He was a great Pleasant of God. Having accepted the rank of priest, and then the rank of bishop in the most difficult years for the Holy Church (1923), the new bishop, a well-known professor and surgeon by that time, began his ascent to Calvary of archpastoral service - the mournful path of confession and martyrdom. Years of exile and imprisonment did not break the courageous ascetic. Until the end of his days, he remained a merciful doctor and good shepherd, treating both physical and spiritual ailments of his flock. Saint Father Luke, pray to God for us! Elena Romanova (Magazine “Save our souls!” No. 5 (8), 1999, Dnepropetrovsk)

Greek family received healing with the prayers of St. Luke of Crimea. In the fall of 2003, a delegation of pilgrims arrived in Crimea, which included representatives of medical institutions and medical universities in Greece. The trip took place through the efforts of a frequent guest on Crimean land, Archimandrite Nektarios Antonopolous. The leitmotif of the meeting was the personality of St. Luke, who is greatly revered in Greece. According to Father Nektarios, this year a Muslim family was taken to one of the city hospitals in Athens with signs of severe poisoning: a husband, wife and a small child. They were brought too late - the poison had already penetrated deeply, so death was inevitable. It so happened that the Greek doctor, a man of ardent faith and admirer of St. Luke, had with him a particle of the relics of the archbishop-surgeon. “Holy Father, you helped not only Christians, but all those who suffer. Intercede for these people who are dying without your help!” — the doctor prayed until the patients felt much better.

One woman has A resident of the village of Zuya, her three-year-old daughter fell ill. The girl's eye hurt. The mother contacted the local pediatrician, she treated the girl for about a month, but there was no improvement. After almost six months of treatment in the hospital. Semashko found out that the girl had a thorn growing. Desperate, the woman turned to Archbishop Luke for help. He carefully examined the patient and wrote a letter of recommendation to the famous surgeon at the Invalid War Hospital on Rosa Luxemburg Street. In a very delicate manner, he asked him to perform an operation on the girl, described the disease in detail, made a drawing of the eye, gave recommendations for preparing for the operation, and even indicated what diet should be before and after the operation. But not only that: through his subordinate, the ruler transferred to the hospital everything necessary for the girl. When the mother and the operated child found themselves in the saint’s office, he looked at the eye and said: “Thank God, everything is fine. Pray, and I will pray, and the Lord will help us.”

Maria Germanovna Trinikhina says that around 1956, her daughter fell ill with intestinal peritonitis. Doctors determined her to be hopeless. Then she turned to Vladyka Luke. He examined the girl, got acquainted with the medical history and said that she could be saved. He gave me a referral for surgery, but the doctors refused to operate. Then the bishop personally came to the hospital and consulted the doctors in detail. Operation was successfully completed.

Cleric of the Crimean diocese Archpriest Leonid Dunaev recalls: “In the Moscow region there lived a woman who was seriously ill. Her son, a big boss, organized the best doctors, purchased many expensive medications, but the patient did not receive relief. In desperation, she wrote a letter to Archbishop Luke. The Bishop answered her, advising her to fervently pray to God, place all her hope in Him and stop taking all medications. After some time, the recovered woman came to Simferopol to personally thank the saint for her recovery.

With mother Anna Mikhailovna Kudryashova the stomach was upset, and after each meal they began severe pain, which were so unbearable that she screamed and had to lie for a long time until the pain subsided. Doctors, after a thorough examination, said that surgery was necessary. Then they turned to the bishop. He examined the sick woman, prayed, gave her medicine and, miraculously, the illness passed without any trace.

Semyon Trofimovich Kamensky was hopelessly ill and asked Archbishop Luke to be present at his operation. Saint Luke asked: “Do you believe in God?” “I believe, Vladyka, but I don’t go to Church,” came the answer. - Pray, I bless you and remove you from the operation. For fifteen years you will not have any illness. And so it happened according to the word of the saint of God.

Zoya Kuzminichna Orlova testifies to the foresight of Saint Luke. Her mother, Derzhakova Akilina Feodulovna, helped bake prosphora at the cathedral in 1959-1960. The saint, apparently, was impressed by the selflessness of the prosphora-maker Aquilina (she did not take payment for her work), and he predicted the future of her children and grandchildren. He said that Aquilina's children would survive through their work. And so it happened. Zoya Kuzminichna, being retired, worked in the same production for 13 years. And he also said that before the end they will know God. The author of this message testifies to his faith in God. Zoya Kuzminichna was not yet married, and Saint Luke said that she would be equal with her husband and that they would have a son who would be better than his father. Son has higher education, and my father has incomplete secondary school. Next, the bishop told Akilina to leave her job as a prosphora baker and nurse her grandson, because she would only just have time to raise him. And indeed, in 1966 a boy was born, very sickly; in the first year of his life he suffered from pneumonia, he needed special care. Grandma only watched it until four years and died. And the last thing Archbishop Luke said was that Aquilina’s son-in-law would die unexpectedly, and her daughter would end up with a lot of money. The prediction came true. Zoya Kuzminichna's husband died unexpectedly. He sat, talked, then suddenly bowed down and died. And the same goes for money.

Another case happened to the wife of the secretary of the diocese, Mother Nadezhda Ivanovna Miloslavova. When Bishop Luke arrived for the evening service, Father John reported to him that Mother Nadezhda had suffered an attack. Doctors. Those who arrived by ambulance did not see anything serious. Children of Father John, who had medical education Having examined the mother, they also did not recognize anything dangerous. After listening to the secretary’s father, the bishop became very excited. I urgently demanded a car. Mother met the bishop in great embarrassment: “God save you, Vladyka, but your labors are in vain: the attack has passed and I feel good.” After carefully examining her, the saint called Father John. The conversation was short: if his mother does not undergo surgery within two hours, she will die. Mother Nadezhda was urgently brought to the hospital, a council of doctors was gathered, but they said that the operation was not necessary. An hour has passed. Mother herself began to ask for the operation to be performed on her, since she undoubtedly believed in the words of the saint. The operation was performed, and when they opened the abdominal cavity, they discovered a huge abscess that was about to burst. The doctors were amazed at Archbishop Luke's accurate diagnosis. Mother Nadezhda was saved.

Galina Fedorovna Five-door testifies to the Bishop as an outstanding diagnostician. “A patient was admitted to our hospital for follow-up treatment with complaints of pain in the right thigh and inability to move. During the battles he received a concussion, but was not wounded. When examining the patient by all the leading specialists of the hospital, no pathology was found, either in the pictures or in the tests. He needs to be discharged, but he can’t walk. Our leading surgeon, a sharp and decisive man, said during his rounds: “He is a malingerer, discharge him.” I felt very sorry for him, and I asked Professor Voino-Yasenetsky to look at this young man. Vladyka examined him carefully and looked into his eyes for a long time. They gave him pictures and tests, but he didn’t take them: “Nothing is needed, take the patient away.” When the young man was taken away, the professor said: “The patient has prostate cancer with metastases to the thigh.” It sounded like a bolt from the blue. “Don’t believe me? Let's take him to the operating room." In the operating room, after a calming conversation, under local anesthesia, an incision was made in the outer cavity of the thigh and a 5x6 cm tumor conglomerate, reminiscent of red caviar, fell out of it. He was sent for urgent histology. After 30 minutes, a histologist ran out into the preoperative room, where all the doctors headed by the professor were sitting, and said: “You sent me a metastasis from cancerous tumor prostate gland." Vladyka Luke said: “If possible, call the patient’s mother.” Two weeks later the young man died.”

After every service the bishop was escorted home by parishioners cathedral. His true love responded to people mutual love. At the door of the house he blessed everyone again. The grace of God rested on the saint, and people did not want to leave him. Vladika Luka generously provided medical care to all those in need. The clergy of the Crimean diocese were closest to the bishop’s heart as co-pastors and prayer partners. One day he gathered them and said: “If you or members of your family suddenly fall ill, contact me first.” At the end of the 40s, priest Leonid Dunaev’s wife, Mother Capitolina, fell ill. Father Leonid told the bishop about this, he replied: “Don’t you dare give her medicine.” The next day he inquired about mother’s health and again repeated the prohibition to give medicine. On the third day after the liturgy, Father Leonid invited the bishop to visit his mother. She lay bedridden by illness and could not even eat. The saint entered the house. - Where is the patient? He was taken to the sick room. - Your father Leonid is disobedient. I told him not to give you medicine. - No, sir, he did not give me medicine. “Then here’s the medicine for you: in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” - With these words, he blessed the sick woman with a wide cross. Vladyka left, and mother got out of bed and began to eat. Her health has improved.

One day a woman came to the bishop with his twelve year old son. He had a huge tumor on his neck that hung down onto his chest. The doctors insisted on an operation, but the saint, having examined him, smiled and said: “No operations. In three days you will come to me.” Three days later, the grateful mother brought her fully recovered son to the bishop for his blessing.

At the rector of the Dzhankoy temple Archpriest Boris Libatsky had a seizure. The emergency doctors said that surgery was needed. Remembering the bishop’s order, Father Boris reported to him about his health. He said that in addition to this operation, two more would need to be done and that the outcome of these operations could be bad. He predicted that there would be two more attacks. Relying on the will of God, Father Boris suffered these attacks and remained alive. Simferopol military doctors asked the professor to give a course of lectures on purulent surgery and advise their hospital. More than once the consultant had to take up a scalpel. One patient, the secretary of the Kerch city party committee, was taken to Simferopol with a purulent process in the pelvic bones. The case is difficult, almost hopeless. And then the chief surgeon asked Professor Voino-Yasenetsky himself to operate. All the hospital doctors came to watch this complex operation. Even before the first cut, he showed all the points where he expected to encounter suppuration. The operation went brilliantly, and the hospital doctors received a wonderful lesson in medical skills.

Miraculous restoration of severed fingers through prayer to St. Luke

In the summer of 2002, the Stadnichenko family came from distant Murmansk to Feodosia on vacation. Nazariy, who repeatedly visited his grandmother in Feodosia in the summer, could not imagine how his life would change after these holidays. The boy studied at a music school, studied seriously and decided to connect his life with music. Summer in Crimea is hot, so the doors and windows were wide open that day. After another lesson with the instrument, Nazariy got up and went into the next room where family members were sitting. The hand automatically leaned against the door frame. The next moment, from a sharp pain in his fingers, he lost consciousness. A gust of wind slammed the door and the phalanges of the 3rd and 4th fingers turned into a bloody mess. The first thought that appeared in the child’s clearing mind was that he would never be able to play the piano again. And this could have been a real disaster for him.

When we arrived at the Feodosia hospital and took an x-ray, it became clear that the fingers could no longer be saved and urgent amputation was necessary. The parents and grandmother tried their best to calm the child, but it was in vain. During the operation, the surgeon amputated two phalanges, completely removing the joint capsules.

After the operation a few days later, grandmother - Varvara Shavrina - seeing how her beloved grandson was suffering, said that in Simferopol there are the relics of the great saint of God - St. Luke, who heals people from various diseases and everyone who comes with faith to him incorruptible relics, receives from the Lord what he asks. The parents took the child and went to Simferopol. Having reached the Holy Trinity Convent, they fell to the shrine with the relics and began to ask for healing for their son. As a souvenir of his visit to the shrine, they bought Nazarius a laminated icon of the Saint and oil from his relics.

The boy asked to bandage this icon to his crippled fingers and anointed it with oil every day. A few weeks later, when the pain subsided, he began to feel slight discomfort at the amputation site, later the area began to itch and the family consulted a doctor. When examining the fingers at the amputation site, small tubercles were discovered, which over time began to increase until they acquired the shape and size of normal phalanges, and after some time the nails grew back.

When the surgeon from Feodosia, who performed the operation, found out about what had happened, he did not believe it, he said that this was some kind of nonsense, this does not happen in nature: an amputated joint cannot recover. He demanded x-rays. They showed that joints and bones that were completely removed were restored. The doctor stated that a miracle had happened.

Today, regrown fingers are virtually indistinguishable from other fingers, except that the lobes have slightly less muscle tissue than the other phalanges, making them look somewhat thinner than the others.

By the inscrutable ways of the Lord, the fate of Nazarius is intertwined with the life of the Saint. He was born in the Cherkasy region, where the parents of St. Luke lived for a long time and where he himself visited several times. Holy Baptism Nazarius received from the hands of Archpriest Anatoly Chepel (city of Feodosiya), who was ordained to the priesthood by Saint Luke.

After the healing received, the Stadnichenko family came several times to the relics of the Saint to thank him for the healing received. This year there was a warm meeting between Vladyka Lazar and Nazarius and his family. Metropolitan Lazar, in the presence of the boy’s parents and Crimean journalists, spoke about the miracle that had occurred and said that “... our life is in the hands of the Lord, and if the Lord wills, then a miracle can happen that will not fit into any of the laws material world. We are all children of God and according to our faith it is given to us.”

At the end of the meeting, Vladyka presented Nazariy with a large icon of St. Luke as a blessing and invited him to enter the revived Tauride Theological Seminary. Today Nazariy and his family live in Podolsk near Moscow and study piano at the Moscow Music School.

Archbishop Luke (Voino-Yasenetsky) is one of the newly glorified saints, who, however, is already surrounded by enormous veneration among Orthodox Christians. His life was cut short in the early sixties of the 20th century as a result of a long illness. But his name is not forgotten; daily prayers are offered to Saint Luke of Crimea from the lips of many believers.

The formation of the personality of Saint Luke

Before moving on to the texts of the saint’s prayers themselves, we should understand a little about the biography of this person. This will give an understanding of why prayer is offered to him at all. Saint Luke was given the name Valentin at birth - Valentin Feliksovich Voino-Yasenetsky. He was born in 1877 in Kerch. As a child, he had a penchant for drawing and dreamed of becoming an artist, but ultimately chose the path of a doctor. After graduating from Kiev University, Valentin worked as a surgeon at Far East, operating on wounded soldiers who took part in battles during the Russo-Japanese War. In 1917, he moved to Turkestan, where he continued to practice medicine in one of the hospitals in Tashkent. In 1920, he headed the department of operative surgery and topographic anatomy at Turkestan University and gave lectures.

Taking Holy Orders

While living in Tashkent, Valentin Voino-Yasenetsky begins to show an active interest in church life. Thanks to one of his speeches in 1920 regarding church life in Turkestan, Valentin was noticed by the Tashkent Bishop Innocent, who ordained him to the rank of deacon, and then priest. Having taken upon himself the burden of shepherding and bearing the obedience of a cathedral preacher, Valentin did not abandon medicine and scientific activity, while continuing to operate and teach.

Persecution and exile of Archbishop Luke

The persecution of Father Valentin began after he took monastic vows in 1923 with the name Luke in honor of the evangelist, who, according to legend, was also a doctor. In the same year, Hieromonk Luke was ordained to the rank of bishop, after which the first exile followed - to Turukhansk.

While in prison, Bishop Luke worked on his book “Essays on Purulent Surgery,” for which he would later be personally awarded by Comrade Stalin. Soon, Right Reverend Luke was sent to Moscow, where the authorities allowed him to serve and live in an apartment. Fourteen years later, during the anti-religious persecutions of 1937, Bishop Luke’s second exile followed, this time to Krasnoyarsk. When the war began, he was sent to work as a doctor at the Krasnoyarsk evacuation point. Since 1943, he has also occupied the Krasnoyarsk bishop's see. However, just a year later he faces moving again. Now, as a bishop, he travels to the Tambov region, but does not stop working in medicine, coordinating under his leadership about 150 hospitals in the region.

Awards and canonization

With the end of the war, Archbishop Luke will receive a church reward - the right to wear a diamond cross on his hood. And from the outside state power he is awarded the medal “For Valiant Labor in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.”

In 1946, Archbishop Luke was awarded another award - the Stalin Prize of the 1st degree - for his contribution to the development of domestic science in the field of medicine.

In the same year he was transferred as a bishop to Simferopol, entrusted with the Crimean See. There the Most Reverend Luke will spend the rest of his life. By the end of his days, he will completely lose his sight, but still will not stop serving.

At this time, the Council of the Moscow Theological Academy accepts His Eminence Luke as an honorary member of the academy. And his posthumous veneration among the church people led to a natural canonization: in 1996 in Simferopol, Archbishop Luke was glorified as a saint and confessor of the faith.

His lifetime service as a doctor also determined his place in the cathedral of saints - prayer to St. Luke became a means of healing and recovery. People obsessed with various ailments and diseases turn to him, as well as to Saint Panteleimon. However, praying for something else is also not prohibited. Many parents read, for example, prayers to St. Luke for children and family well-being. As the patron saint of the area, Archbishop Luke is remembered in those places where he carried out his pastoral ministry - in Crimea, Tambov, Tashkent, Krasnoyarsk, etc.

General prayer to Saint Luke

In personal prayers, you can pray in your own words, but joint services are subject to a certain order and have a standardized set of texts. Below we will present a prayer to St. Luke of Crimea in Russian translation:

O all-blessed confessor, saint, our father Luke! Great saint of Christ! In tenderness, bending the knees of our hearts, like the child of our father, we beg you with all zeal: hear us, sinners. Offer our prayer to the merciful and humane God, to whom you stand in the goodness of the saints, with angelic faces. For we believe that you love us with the same love with which you loved all your neighbors when you were on earth.
Ask Christ our God to strengthen his children in the spirit of correct faith and piety. May he give the shepherds holy zeal and concern for the salvation of the flock entrusted to them. Let them protect the rights of believers, strengthen the weak in the faith, instruct the ignorant, and rebuke those who resist. Give each of us the gift that we need, and which will be useful both for eternal salvation and in this life. Grant our cities affirmation, the earth fertility, protection from hunger and disease, comfort to the grieving, recovery to the sick, return those who are astray to the path of truth, bless the parents, raise and raise children in the fear of the Lord, help the orphans and the lonely. Give us all your archpastoral blessing, so that we, having this prayerful intercession, will get rid of the opposition of the devil and avoid all enmity, disorder, heresies and schisms. Lead us to the road leading to the villages of the righteous, praying for us to the Almighty God, so that eternal life We are honored with you to continually glorify the consubstantial and inseparable Trinity, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

This is common prayer Saint Luke, read during official services. Prayer books intended for private use also contain other versions of the texts. One of them - a prayer to St. Luke for health - will be given below. For ease of understanding the text, it will also be presented in Russian translation.

Saint Luke: prayer for recovery

Oh, blessed Saint Luke, hear and accept us sinners turning to you in prayer! In your life, you are accustomed to accepting and helping everyone who needs your help. Listen to us, the mourners, who call with faith and hope for your intercession. Grant us ambulance and miraculous healing! May your mercy not be squandered now towards us, the unworthy. Heal us, who suffer in this hectic world and find no consolation and compassion anywhere in our mental sorrows and physical illnesses. Deliver us from the temptations and torments of the devil, help us carry our cross in life, endure all the difficulties of life and not lose the image of God in it and preserve the Orthodox faith. Give us the strength to have firm trust and hope in God, unfeigned love for our neighbors, so that when the time comes to part with life, we will achieve the Kingdom of Heaven together with all those pleasing to God. Amen

So in Orthodox Church Saint Luke is revered. The prayer for recovery can be read not only during times of physical exhaustion, but also during times of depression or some kind of mental illness. In addition, the range of illnesses in the church tradition also includes spiritual problems, for example, doubts in faith.

Editor's response

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

Archbishop Luke, in peace Valentin Feliksovich Voino-Yasenetsky, born April 27, 1877 in Kerch in large family 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 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 yours 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 did not pass.

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.

Saint Luke Voino-Yasenetsky is without a doubt one of the most prominent saints of modern times. The future saint was born in Kerch (Crimea) in 1877 into a family with Polish noble roots. The young boy Valya (St. Luke in the world - Valentin Feliksovich Voino-Yasenetsky) loved to draw and even wanted to enter the Academy of Arts in the future. But even then, in his youth, the future saint, remembering within himself the lines from the Gospel “Then? The disciple said to his own people: “There are many people, but there are few people:” (Matthew 9:37) made a decision: to serve people in order to alleviate the suffering of the sick. Later, the gift of drawing turned out to be very useful in the work of a traditional healer and teacher.

The future Archbishop Luke entered the medical faculty of Kyiv University and at the age of 26 graduated brilliantly, immediately starting work in Chita in a military hospital (at the time the Russo-Japanese War). In the hospital, Valentin got married and four children were born into their family. Life brought the future saint first to Simbirsk and then to Kursk province.

Being an active and successful surgeon, Valentin Feliksovich performed many operations and conducted research in the field of anesthesia. He put a lot of effort into studying and introducing local anesthesia (general anesthesia had negative consequences). It should be noted that people close to this great surgeon always envisioned his future as a researcher and teacher, while the future Saint Luke of Crimea himself always insisted on direct work, helping ordinary people (he sometimes called himself a peasant doctor).

Valentin unexpectedly accepted the priesthood after a short conversation with Bishop Innocent, which took place after Valentin gave a report refuting the theses of scientific atheism. After this, the life of the great surgeon became even more difficult: he worked for three people - as a doctor, as a professor and as a priest.

The biography of St. Luke of Voino-Yasenetsky is very interesting, and it cannot be placed all on one page of our website. Below we present the main events from the life of the saint.
In 1923, when the so-called “Living Church” provoked a renovationist schism, bringing discord and confusion into the bosom of the Church, the Bishop of Tashkent was forced to go into hiding, entrusting the management of the diocese to Father Valentin and another protopresbyter. The exiled Bishop Andrei of Ufa (Prince Ukhtomsky), while passing through the city, approved the election of Father Valentin to the episcopate, carried out by a council of clergy who remained faithful to the Church. Then the same bishop tonsured Valentin in his room as a monk with the name Luke and sent him to a small town near Samarkand. Two exiled bishops lived here, and Saint Luke was consecrated in the strictest secrecy (May 18, 1923). A week and a half after returning to Tashkent and after his first liturgy, he was arrested by the security authorities (GPU), accused of counter-revolutionary activities and espionage for England and sentenced to two years of exile in Siberia, in the Turukhansk region.

T Well, in remote Siberia, Saint Luke worked in hospitals, operated and helped the suffering. Before the operation, he always prayed and drew a cross on the body of the patient with iodine, for which we were invited to interrogations more than once. After a long exile even further - to the shores of the Arctic Ocean - the saint was returned back first to Siberia and then completely released to Tashkent.
In subsequent years, repeated arrests and interrogations, as well as the detention of the saint in prison cells, greatly undermined his health.
In 1934, his work “Essays on Purulent Surgery” was published, which soon became a classic of medical literature. Already very ill, with poor vision, the Saint was interrogated by a “conveyor belt”, when for 13 days and nights in the blinding light of lamps, investigators, taking turns, continuously interrogated him, forcing him to incriminate himself. When the bishop began a new hunger strike, he, exhausted, was sent to the state security dungeons. After new interrogations and torture, which exhausted his strength and brought him to a state where he could no longer control himself, Saint Luke signed with a trembling hand that he admitted his participation in the anti-Soviet conspiracy.

IN last years Throughout his life, the saint worked on the publication of various medical and theological works, in particular an apology for Christianity against scientific atheism, entitled “Spirit, Soul and Body.” In this work, the saint defends the principles of Christian anthropology with solid scientific arguments.
In February 1945, for his archpastoral activities, Saint Luke was awarded the right to wear a cross on his hood. For patriotism, he was awarded the medal “For Valiant Labor in the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945.”