Luke (Voyno-Yasenetsky)

Luke of Simferopol[2][3] (Luke, Russian: Архиепи́скоп Лука́, born Valentin Felixovich Voyno-Yasenetsky, Russian: Валенти́н Фе́ликсович Во́йно-Ясене́цкий; April 27 or May 9, 1877 – June 11, 1961), known as Saint Luke the Blessed Surgeon, was an outstanding surgeon, the founder of purulent surgery, a spiritual writer, a bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church, and archbishop of Simferopol and the Crimea from May 1946. He was a laureate of the Stalin Prize in medicine in 1946.

Saint Luke the Blessed Surgeon
Archbishop, Confessor, Surgeon and Wonderworker
Born	Valentin Felixovich Voyno-Yasenetsky 9 May 1877 Kerch, Taurida Governorate, Russian Empire
Died	11 June 1961(1961-06-11) (aged 84) Simferopol, Soviet Union
Resting place	Simferopol, Crimea
Venerated in	Eastern Orthodox Church
Canonized	25 May 1996, Sarov Monastery by Holy Governing Synod, Russian Orthodox Church
Major shrine	Holy Trinity Cathedral, Simferopol, Crimea
Feast	May 29 June 11 (Repose)
Attributes	Wearing bishop's vestment, pectoral cross and engolpion worn about his neck, miter and crozier.
Patronage	Doctors Nurses Pharmacies Physicians Surgeons Scientists Military Medical Academy of Serbia[1]

His most important work in medicine is Sketches of Purulent Surgery (1934).[4] This is still a reference book and a manual for surgeons. Also, he operated patients who had diseases with gall bladder, stomach and with other organs of abdominal cavity and worked in neurosurgery and orthopedics. Voyno-Yasenetsky made a great contribution into anesthesiology. His first monography “Regional anesthesiology” was published in 1915 in Petrograd. In 1916 he defended a thesis “About regional anesthesiology of the second branch of trigeminal nerve” He wrote about practical importance of method of regional anesthesia in the attachment to the “Essays of purulent surgery”

“... a great amount of death is due to unskillful or careless use of chloroform and ether. [...] That’s why these methods of local anaesthesia which help doctors pay attention only for the operation have a great importance. In my opinion, one of the most important conditions in the development of the rural surgery is the wide familiarisation of doctors with these methods...”

Voyno-Yasenetsky was the first who described the anaesthesia for the trigeminal nerve by the use of ethanol into the branches of this nerve (orbital, maxillary and mandibular) and into gassers node.

He showed 4 reports in the first scientific meeting of the doctors in the Turkestan (23-28 October 1922). There were conclusions about surgery treatment of tuberculosis, purulent processes of knee joint, tendon of hands and ribs cartilages. Voyno-Yasenetsky made an experiment with the bacteriologist Guselnikov where they were studying the mechanism of the purulent processes in the ribs cartilage after typhus. When he was working in the military hospital in the Krasnoyarsk he invented new operations, such as joints rejection. This operation was used to treat osteomyelitis of big joints.

As a noticeable religious figure, he was subjected to political repressions and spent 11 years in internal exile. Luke's mother was Orthodox and his father was Catholic, and according to his memoirs, he did not receive a religious upbringing from his family. When he left school the principal gave him a copy of the New Testament, and it was by a careful study of this that he came to know the teachings of Christ.

In 1958, writing after Stalin's death, and under Nikita Khrushchev's new wave of anti-religious persecution, Saint Luke stated "how arduous it has been to swim against the stormy current of antireligious propaganda, and how many sufferings it caused me, and continues to cause me to this day."[5]