Film about St. Luke of Crimea presented in Zaporizhia

According to the organizers, the international St. Luke Days Project is aimed at influencing the worldview of the modern society through the historic and spiritual heritage of Slavic peoples on the example of a life feat of doctor, philanthropist, and Archbishop Luke of Crimea.

The project is based on showing Luke to target audiences of teachers, doctors, students majoring in medicine, and parishioners of the Orthodox Church. Feature film Luke is based in the biography of the renowned Ukrainian professor of medicine, surgeon, philanthropist, Archbishop Luke Voino-Yasenetsky (secular name Valentyn Voino-Yasenetsky, b. May 9, 1871, Kerch – d. July 11, 1961, Simferopol). This is a story of a young man who graduated from an art school in Kyiv, but decided to dedicate his life to medicine, since he felt an urge to help people. His wife’s death of tuberculosis and the anti-Bolshevik uprising in Tashkent in 1919, where the doctor lived at the time, strengthened his religious views. The doctor became an active parishioner of the Orthodox Church, he was ordained as deacon, and later, as priest. Voino-Yasenetsky continued to work as a doctor all the time. An icon of the Holy Virgin occupied a place of honor in his operating room, he always made a sign of the cross and asked for God’s help before starting a surgery. And this contradicted the Soviet government. What followed was an arrest, terrible interrogations, and three exiles.

On November 22, 1995, the Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church canonized Archbishop Luke of Simferopol and Crimea as a locally honored saint. The Jubilee Holy Bishop’s Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in 2000 added Luke to the list of New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia for the general church honoring.

It should be mentioned that the Zaporizhia media representatives displayed a variety of reactions to film Luke. Some found it grim, the others too religious, but the majority of viewers wiped a tear while watching. In general, the geography of the project is rather wide, after it is showed in a number of Ukrainian cities, it will be taken to Belarus, Russia, Greece, the United States, Italy, and Germany.