What is the most unusual saint? For me, definitely - Luka Voino-Yasenetsky. Modern, with deep knowledge, making great sacrifices for the sake of others.

Luka Voino-Yasenetsky has no destiny - a thriller: his life made such sharp turns that it would be more than enough for several biographies. Repression, exile, torture, from which he sometimes came to despair, prison, and then the actual rehabilitation of the Stalin Prize for "Essays on purulent surgery"! This book, by the way, is still held in high esteem by surgeons.

Valentin Feliksovich (worldly name) Voino-Yasenetsky was born at the end of the 19th century and lived until 1961.

As a child, the future archbishop did not even dream of becoming a doctor, he had completely different interests. Valentin wanted to paint: he graduated from an art school in Kiev and completed an internship in Munich. And then rr-times - and a sharp turn towards medicine. He explained his decision simply: "I have no right to do what I like, but I must do what is useful for suffering people."

Even during his studies, he was predicted a professorship, and he answered this - I would go to the zemstvo doctors. I knew that it was in the outback that the situation with medicine was awful, people become crippled or die from diseases for which the city had long been found justice.

Immediately after graduation, Valentin began to do eye surgeries. Healed entire families without refusing anyone. Just imagine: in 1913 Voino-Yasenetsky performed a thousand operations!

Our doctor never dreamed of becoming a monk. And during the Russian-Japanese war he married his sister of mercy Anna Lanskoy. For his sake, she broke her vow of virginity, for which, according to Luke, the Lord punished her with pathological jealousy. The future archimandrite received the priestly dignity and tonsure soon after her death in 1919.

At the end of his life, Luka ended up in the Crimea, in Simferopol. Of course, not the war years, not the Stalinist repressions, but there were enough worries. It was necessary to make sure that church life in the capital of the peninsula did not die out. And he achieved what he wanted. Five years before his death, the archbishop was completely blind. His relics were found on November 22, 1995. Now they are in the Holy Trinity Cathedral of Simferopol.

A few years ago a real miracle happened to me. Once in the church they gave me oil, consecrated on the relics of St. Luke. Then a note about him came into my hands, and a little later a colleague called and offered to fly to the Greek city of Patras, accompanying the ark with relics. The breath stopped with joy. I agreed as indifferently as possible, fearing to scare me.

 First, there was a magnificent farewell to the relics in the Donskoy Monastery, in a couple of days 70 thousand (!) Believers venerated them. And then - a magnificent meeting in Patras, where Greek hierarchs met our delegation at the gangway. The column drove to the main cathedral of the city. Clean well-groomed streets, and ... nobody! It was all like a disaster movie: suddenly abandoned houses. But then we turned into another street and ... ran into the human sea. The whole city was on the cathedral square - from babies to very old people. The main temple, designed for 7000 people, could not accommodate everyone!

They all came and came to worship Saint Luke! It turned out that the Crimean Luka is well known and loved very much in Greece, and especially in Patras. Every Thursday in the temple is dedicated to his memory, and four dozen churches throughout Greece are consecrated in his honor. Greek parishioners, like Russians, turn to the saint with requests for healing.

... Leaving the relics of the saint in Patras, we returned to Moscow. And I kept thinking about how the glory of the great doctor and pastor in a very short time (the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church glorified Luka in 2000) overcame the borders of Russia. Although, there is an explanation for this: after all, the values ​​preached by Luke are understandable and close to everyone.

“The main thing in life is to do good. If you cannot do great good for people, try to do at least a little "...