Stavros J. Baloyannis

‘A King’s secret ought to be kept, but the works of God should be acknowledged publicly’.

Born in Kertz in 1877, St Luke (Valentine Felixovich Voino-Yassenetski), Metropolitan of Simferopol and Crimea, was a surgeon, professor, author, theologian, philosopher, confessor, martyr, and bishop. He studied Medicine at Kiev’s University and graduated in 1903 at the age of 26. Vladimir Felixovich initially worked as a local district physician. He offered his medical services as member of the Kiev Medical Hospital of the Red Cross during the Russian-Japanese war in 1904–1905 in the city of Chita. In 1915, Valentin Felixovich published his first important scientific work, his thesis entitled ‘Regional anesthesia’, for which he was awarded Chojnacki prize by the Warsaw University. In 1917, Valentin Felixovich went to Tashkent in order to oversee the Department of Surgery as head surgeon of the Tashkent Municipal Hospital. In 1919, his wife Anna, who suffered from pulmonary tuberculosis, died in Tashkent, leaving four orphans. In 1921, Valentin Felixovich was ordained a deacon and priest and, in 1923, he was consecrated as a bishop. He was also appointed full professor of Topographic Anatomy and Surgery at Tashkent’s University. His lectures at the university attracted a large number of medical students and surgeons as well as students of various faculties and disciplines. In 1923, Bishop Luke was arrested and sentenced to imprisonment and exile to Siberia. That was the first of three times that Bishop Luke was arrested and exiled without cause, which he endured for 11 years. In 1924, at the hospital of Yeniseisk, Bishop Luke successfully performed the world’s first kidney transplant from animal (calf) to man. During the Great Patriotic War, He was called to serve as chief surgeon at the army hospital in Krasnoyarsk. He successfully established ‘the battlefield surgery’ and saved the lives of numerous soldiers transferred to hospital from various battlefields. For his medical services during the war, he was awarded a medal ‘For valiant effort in the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945’. After the war, he finished the book ‘Late Resection of Infected Wounds of the Large Joints’, which was submitted together with his large memorable handbook entitled ‘Notes on the Surgical Treatment of Purulent Wounds’, which was awarded the Stalin Prize in the first order in 1946. In May 1946, the Holy Synod elevated Bishop Luke to the rank of Archbishop and he was elected Archbishop of Simferopol and Crimea. At the same time, Bishop Luke continued to practice surgery and give consultations in the Army Hospital and Hospital of the Veterans of the Great Patriotic War in Simferopol. He proceeded to the most serious surgical operations on severe and unusual cases.