Today is the Day of Remembrance of the surgeon, professor of medicine and bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church, Saint Luke (Voino-Yasenetsky).

«Science without religion is heaven without the sun. But science, clothed in light, is an inspired thought, penetrating the darkness of this world with bright light» Archbishop Luka (in the world Valentin Feliksovich Voino-Yasenetsky; April 27 (May 9), 1877, Kerch - June 11, 1961, Simferopol) surgeon, professor of medicine, bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church; from April 1946 - Archbishop of Simferopol and Crimea. Laureate of the Stalin Prize, first degree (1944). [ /upload/documents/svyatitel_Luka_Voyno-Yaseneckiy_eleps.jpg ] During his years as a zemstvo doctor, Valentin Felixovich came up with the idea to present his unique experience in the book "Essays on Purulent Surgery". This fundamental work was first published in 1934 and has since been reprinted four times (the most recent in 2006). The book was written at a time when doctors lacked effective antibacterial and anti-inflammatory drugs. The success of treatment and the outcome of the disease were determined by the effectiveness of surgery. The value of this work for medicine lies in the fact that the author developed a topographic and anatomical concept for the surgical treatment of purulent diseases. Before the era of antibiotics, any young surgeon, with this book, could perform operations in the difficult conditions of a provincial hospital. In its scientific, clinical, and literary merits, the book is unique and has no analogues in world medical literature. It is essentially an "encyclopedia of purulent surgery." For this work, Archbishop Luke received the Stalin Prize, 1st degree, in 1946. During his priesthood, Luka delivered 1,250 sermons, 750 of which were recorded, and wrote a two-volume treatise in which he attempted to substantiate the unity of science and religion. He argued that discoveries made in the late 19th and early 20th centuries demonstrated the inexhaustibility of our understanding of life and allowed us to reconsider many ideas in natural science. In the first, "Spirit, Soul, and Body," he examined the movements, connections, and properties of elementary particles in the human body, arguing that they may constitute the human soul. He pointed out the difference between bodily sensations and the feelings of the soul, and reflected on the concept of Christian anthropology he had introduced, which viewed man as a unity of three components: spirit, soul, and body. In 2000, at the Jubilee Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church, he was canonized as a saint and confessor.