February 6, 2026. At the request of Metropolitan Alexander of Astana and Kazakhstan, the Head of the Crimean Metropolitanate, Metropolitan Tikhon of Simferopol and Crimea, transferred for the blessing of the faithful of the Kazakhstan Metropolitan District a relic of Saint Luke, Archbishop of Simferopol and Crimea, physician and hierarch.
The holy relic will be permanently enshrined at the Church of Christ the Savior in the city of Almaty.
By the blessing of Metropolitan Alexander of Astana and Kazakhstan, since 2017 an Orthodox Medical Center named after Saint Luke (Voino-Yasenetsky) has been operating on the grounds of the Nativity of Christ Cathedral. Currently, the multidisciplinary center employs members of the Society of Orthodox Physicians of Kazakhstan with many years of professional experience. The chairman of the organization is Archpriest Anatoly Izmerov, a cleric of the Church of Christ the Savior of the Southern Capital.
The Medical Center of Saint Luke, which received a state license of the Republic of Kazakhstan to carry out medical activities in 2018, in cooperation with the National Medical Research Center for Otorhinolaryngology of the FMBA of Russia, develops and implements projects of a social and charitable nature.
“A surgeon of worldwide renown, an outstanding scholar, professor of medicine, laureate of a state prize, and author of many unique scientific works, he was glorified by the Church as an ascetic of piety, a sufferer for the faith of Christ, a man of prayer, and a herald of the Gospel teaching. From childhood, love for God and neighbor reigned supreme in his heart. These holy qualities he embodied in his service as an archpastor and surgeon.
For decades, without days off or holidays, sparing neither spiritual nor physical strength, he labored in the medical field, especially helping the poor and the destitute. While working as a surgeon in Tashkent, the future hierarch actively participated in church life. The words of Bishop Innocent of Tashkent and Turkestan, ‘Doctor, you should be a priest,’ he accepted as a divine calling.
After three years of service as a priest, Father Valentin received monastic tonsure with the name of the holy Apostle, Evangelist, and Physician Luke. On May 31, 1923, Hieromonk Luke, by the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow and All Rus’, was secretly consecrated Bishop of Tashkent and Turkestan. From that time, his confessional path of the Cross began.
Numerous arrests, mockery, torture, and exile did not weaken the saint’s zeal in fulfilling his archpastoral duty and medical ministry. During his third exile near Krasnoyarsk, at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, Bishop Luke offered his medical expertise to the authorities for the treatment of wounded soldiers. Thousands of servicemen were saved from death or lifelong disability.
Until the end of his earthly life, despite severe illnesses and trials, the saint regularly celebrated divine services, constantly preached, and received those who suffered.
Saint Confessor Luke reposed in the Lord on June 11, 1961. God glorified His servant with abundant miracles – through the prayers of the saint, numerous healings from various ailments and diseases occurred and continue to occur. In the year 2000, at the Jubilee Bishops’ Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, he was numbered among the saints as a hierarch and confessor.
His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II, who personally knew Archbishop Luke of Crimea, testified about this ascetic of faith as follows: ‘He was truly a wondrous archpastor, combining service to the Church and service to science… The example of Saint Luke teaches us how to find a way out of seemingly hopeless life situations… He never broke under pressure, for his strength was in the Orthodox faith.’”
Bowing before the great shrine that has come to us from the distant land of Crimea, glorifying in prayers and hymns the wise hierarch and merciful physician, we must remember his instructions and lessons of righteousness:
“In works of mercy we can show great zeal… The Lord will judge us at the Last Judgment precisely by whether we performed works of mercy or not… We must imitate the love of God.”
Saint Luke reminds us that the fullness of this commandment is possible only through communion with God and unity with Christ through the Church’s sacraments.
“May the Lord, through the prayers of Saint Luke the Physician and Hierarch, grant us not only bodily and spiritual health, but also the grace to live the Gospel not in words, but in deeds.”
From the address of Metropolitan Alexander.
Main
Login or register, to write a comment!
Your comment has been successfully added and is currently being reviewed by the site administration