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My Life: I Came to Love Suffering
by St.Luke (Valentine Voino-Yasenetsky)
Table of Contents
Chapter One. Youth. 1
Chapter Two. Work in Country Hospitals. 4
Chapter Three. Priesthood. 10
Chapter Four. My First Exile. 16
Chapter Five. Leading up to Exile Number Two. 25
Chapter Six. Exile to Archangelsk. 30
Chapter Seven. Arrest Number Three. 35
Chapter One. Youth
My father was a Catholic, and extremely devout. He attended church services regularily and spent long periods of time in prayer at home. Father had an incredibly pure soul and never saw the bad in anyone, trusting everybody, in spite of being surrounded by dishonest people as a part of his work. As a Catholic in our Orthodox family, he found himself somewhat left out.
My mother prayed fervently at home, though it seems she never went to church. This was the result of her indignation at the greed and quarrelling she had witnessed between priests. Neither of my two brothers – both lawyers – showed any inclination towards religion. However, they were always at church when the epitaphios was brought out, which they venerated, and they also always attended Paschal Matins. My older sister, a student, shaken up by the tragic events at Khodynka, suffered a mental breakdown and jumped out of a third floor window, resulting in serious breaks in her hip and humerus, as well as the rupture of her kidneys. That led to the development of kidney stones, from which she died, having lived to be only twenty five. My younger sister, who is alive and in good health, is a wonderful and very pious woman.
I did not receive a religious upbringing from my family, and if I were to speak of any inherited religiousness, then I would have to say that I inherited it from my very devout father.
I had been passionate about drawing since childhood, and along with high school I also graduated from the Kiev School of Art, where it became obvious that I was not without talent. One of my pictures, a not too large representation of an ageing beggar standing with outstretched hand, even took part in an exhibition of the Independent Artists Association. My inclination to painting was so strong that upon completion of high school I made the decision to enter the Petersburg Academy of Arts.
However, while taking the entrance exams I came seriously to doubt whether or not I was choosing the correct path for my life. That brief hesitation ended with the decision that I did not have the right to do what I found pleasing, but rather, I was obligated to do that which would benefit those who were suffering. From the Academy I sent my mother a telegram telling her of my desire to enter the faculty of medicine, though all the openings had already been filled, and I had been offered a place in the faculty of natural sciences, the idea being that I could later transfer to medicine. I turned that down, having a strong dislike for the natural sciences and an obvious bent for the humanitarian: theology, philosophy, and history in particular. And so I chose instead the faculty of law, where I spent a year studying with great interest the history and philosophy of law, political economics and Roman law.
But after a year I was once more irresistibly drawn to painting. I left for Munich, where I entered the private art school of professor Knirr. After only three weeks, however, I was overcome by an irrepressible homesickness and returned to Kiev, where I spent another year rigorously drawing and painting with a group of like-minded people.
It was then that my religiousness showed itself for the first time. I was visiting the Lavra of the Kiev Caves every day, sometimes twice a day, and spending time in the cathedrals of Kiev. Upon returning home from the Lavra and the cathedrals I would draw what I had seen there. I made a lot of sketches and studies of people in prayer, of the pilgrims who had come to the Lavra from a thousand kilometres away, and the direction I would have taken as an artist, had I not decided to give up painting, really took form at that time. I would have gone down the same road as Vasnetsov and Nesterov, the fundamental religious tendencies of my work as a painter already making themselves apparent. By that time I had acquired a clear understanding of the artistic process. Everywhere I happened to be - on the street or in a tram; in the squares and in the markets – I noted all of the expressive, colourful features I saw on the faces and bodies, and in the movements of the people, and when I got home I put it all down on paper. For these sketches of mine I was awarded a prize in an exhibition at the Kiev School of Art.
For a break from my work I would walk each day along the banks of the Dnieper, all the while deep in meditation over the most complicated theological and philosophical questions. Very little came, of course, of these meditations, as I had never received any academic training.
At that time I became enthralled by the ethical teaching of Leo Tolstoy and you could even say that I had become an inveterate Tolstoyan - I slept on a rug on the floor, and in the summertime, leaving for the countryside, I cut the grass and rye alongside the peasants, without falling behind them. However, my days as a Tolstoyan did not continue for long. They continued only until I had read his forbidden piece ‘What I Believe’, published abroad, and which repulsed me with its mockery of the Orthodox faith. I immediately understood that Tolstoy was a heretic, and very far from true Christianity.
I had come to a true understanding of Christ’s teaching not long before that by reading most diligently the entire New Testament, which, according to a good old custom, I had been given by the school principal along with my diploma to see me off into life. Many places in that holy book, which I kept for decades, made a very deep impression on me. I marked them with a red pencil.
But for sheer force of impression nothing could compare to that place in the Gospels where Jesus, turning His disciples’ attention to the fields of ripe wheat says, ‘The harvest truly is plentiful, but the labourers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into His harvest.’ (Matt. 9:37) My heart literally stopped, and I silently exclaimed, ‘O Lord! Can it really be that you have few labourers?!’ Later, many years after, when the Lord called me to be a worker in His field, I was certain that that gospel passage had been God’s first call to serve Him.
And so that reasonably strange year passed. It would now have been possible to enter the faculty of medicine, but once more I was overtaken by doubts for the sake of the ‘common folk’, and because of the heat of my young blood I decided that I had to start doing something useful for them. I entertained thoughts of becoming a medical orderly or a rural teacher, and in that frame of mind set off to meet with the director of the rural school system for the Kiev school district, to ask to be given a position in one of their schools. The director turned out to be an intelligent and clear-sighted individual – he appreciated my aspirations to do good for the ‘common folk’, but was very energetic in discouraging me from that which I was undertaking, convincing me to enter the faculty of medicine.
That fit in with my desire to be of help to the peasants, who were so poorly provided for medically, but the fact that I fairly loathed the natural sciences stood in the way. In the end I overcame this loathing and entered the faculty of medicine at the University of Kiev.
When I studied physics, chemistry, and mineralogy I had an almost physical feeling that I was forcing my brain to work on something that was completely alien to it. And my brain, like a rubber ball that had been squeezed, was trying to push back against things alien to it. Even so, I received only straight ‘A’s and unexpectedly became very interested in anatomy. I studied bones, drew them, and at home made models of them out of clay, soon attracting the attention of all my colleagues and professors of anatomy with my dissection of corpses. In my second year my colleagues had already decided that I would be an anatomy professor, and their prophecy came to pass. In twenty years I did indeed become a professor of regional anatomy and operative surgery.
In my third year I became enthralled with the study of operations on corpses. And an interesting evolution took place in my abilities – my love for form and my ability to draw in fine detail turned into a love for anatomy and finely detailed work in anatomical dissections and operations on corpses. Having left art behind, I became an artist of anatomy and surgery.
In my third year I was unexpectedly chosen class senior. What happened was this – before a certain lecture l found out that one of our classmates, a Polish student, had slapped another one of our classmates, a Jew. At the end of the lecture I stood up and asked for everyone’s attention. Everyone fell silent. I gave a passionate speech denouncing the polish student’s unacceptable behaviour. I spoke about high moral standards, about enduring insult, I called to mind the great Socrates, and how he calmly bore his quarrelsome wife pouring a pot of dirty water over his head. This speech impressed my fellow classmates so much that they unanimously chose me to be class senior.
I passed all of my government exams brilliantly, getting straight ‘A’s, and at the exam the professor of general surgery said to me, ‘Doctor, now you know much more than I do; you know all facets of medicine thoroughly, whereas I have forgotten much that does not pertain directly to my area of speciality.’
Only on the exam for medical chemistry (which is now called biochemistry) did I receive a ‘C’. I did wonderfully on the theoretical part of the exam, but an analysis of a urine sample also needed to be done. According to what was, unfortunately, common practice, the lab technician had told the students what they were to find in the first flask and test-tube, and I knew that the urine I was supposed to analyze contained sugar. However, because of a small mistake the Trommer’s test didn’t work properly for me, and when the professor asked, without looking at me, what I had found there, I could have said that I had found sugar, but instead said that the Trommer’s test hadn’t found any.
That lone ‘C’ didn’t keep me from receiving my medical degree with honours.
When we had all received our diplomas my classmates asked me what I intended to do. When I answered that I intended to be a general practitioner they looked at me in surprise, ‘What?! You are going to be a general practitioner?! Your calling is to be a scientist!’ I was upset that they didn’t understand me at all. Indeed, I had studied medicine with only one goal in mind – to be a rural doctor, a folk doctor, to help the poor.
Chapter Two. Work in Country Hospitals
I didn’t immediately become a country doctor, as my graduation from university took place in the fall of 1903, right before the beginning of the war with Japan, and the beginning of my career in medicine saw me doing surgery in a field hospital of the Kiev Red Cross near the city of Chita.
There were two surgical departments in our hospital - one was headed by an experienced surgeon from Odessa, while our detachment’s head doctor entrusted the other to me, despite the fact that there were two other surgeons in our detachment who were considerably older than I was. I immediately began doing a great amount of surgical work, operating on the wounded, and, although I had not received any special surgical training, immediately began doing large, serious operations on bones, joints, and the skull. The outcome of my work was quite good, no mishaps took place. I was helped greatly by the wonderful book written by the French surgeon Lejar ‘Emergency Surgery’, which had only recently come out, and which I had studied thoroughly before leaving for the Far East.
In 1905, I was not a conscripted medical corps officer and at no time did I wear a uniform.
< . . . >
Chapter Seven. Arrest Number Three
The next year, 1937, saw the beginning of a terrible time for the Holy Church – Yezhov’s term as head of the Moscow GPU. Mass arrests of clergy, and all who were suspected of being hostile to the Soviet authorities began. Of course I was arrested too. Yezhov’s regime was truly frightening. During interrogations prisoners were even subjected to torture. The so-called ‘conveyer belt’ method of interrogation was invented, which I myself experienced twice. The terrifying ‘conveyer belt’ continued day and night without a break. The interrogating chekists relieved one another in turn, not allowing the prisoner to sleep, day or night.
I once more went on a hunger strike in protest, going without food for many days. Even so, I was forced to stand in the corner, and soon I began to fall to the floor in exhaustion. I started to experience strongly pronounced visual and tactile hallucinations, one after the other. One moment it would seem yellow chickens were running around the room and I was catching them. Then I would see myself standing on the edge of an enormous pit in which an entire city had been placed, brightly lit by electric lights. I clearly felt snakes wriggling across my back, under my shirt.
They continued to demand that I confess to espionage, but I replied only by asking them to specify exactly which government I was spying for. Naturally, they were unable to specify. The conveyor belt interrogation continued for 13 days, and more than once I was run under a tap, from which cold water was poured over my head. With no end to the interrogation in sight, I decided to frighten the chekists. I demanded that the head of the First Department be summoned and when he arrived I said that I would sign anything they wanted except for maybe the attempted murder of Stalin. I announced that I was stopping my hunger strike and asked to be sent dinner.
I intended to sever my temporal artery by placing a knife to my temple and striking firmly against its handle. In order to stop the blood it would be necessary to tie up the temporal artery, which would be impossible under the conditions in GPU, and it would be necessary to take me to a hospital or surgical clinic. This would cause a great scandal in Tashkent.
The chekist on duty sat at the other end of the table. When they brought in dinner, I felt the dull blade of the knife without being noticed and realized that it would be impossible to cut the temporal artery with it. I jumped up then and ran quickly to the middle of the room, sawing my throat with the knife. I couldn’t even cut the skin.
The chekist leaped towards me like a cat, tore the knife away and punched me in the chest. I was taken away to another room and offered the chance to sleep on a bare table with a bunch of newspapers under my head for a pillow. Despite the severe shock I had experienced, I nevertheless fell asleep, and can’t remember how long I slept for.
The head of the First Department was already waiting for me, the fabricated story of my espionage ready to be signed. I simply laughed at the request.
Now that two weeks of conveyer-belt treatment had met with defeat, I was returned to the basement at GPU. I was completely drained of all strength by the hunger strike and the conveyer belt, and when we were allowed to visit the washroom, I fainted on the dirty, wet floor. I had to be carried back to my cell. The next day I was transferred to the main regional prison. I spent approximately eight months there under very difficult conditions.
Our large cell was filled to overflowing with prisoners who lay on plank beds three stories high, and in the spaces between them on the stone floor. In order to get to the latrine, which was located near the entrance door, I had to make my way past all of the people lying on the floor at night, tripping and falling on top of them.
Parcels were not allowed, and we were fed extremely badly. To this very day I can remember what they fed us on the feast day of the Annunciation of the Most Holy Mother of God – a big vat of hot water with a very small portion of buckwheat stirred in.
I can’t remember why, but for some reason I ended up in the prison hospital. With the help of God I was able to save the life of a young petty thief who was very ill. I could see that the young prison doctor couldn’t understand what was wrong with him. I examined him myself and found a splenic abscess. I managed to obtain the consent of the prison doctor to have the patient sent to the clinic where my student, dr. Rothenburg, worked. I wrote him about what he would find during the operation and how, and Rothenburg wrote me later to say that everything had been exactly as I had written in my letter.
The petty thief’s life was saved, and for a long time after that whenever I was out in the prison courtyard for one of our walks I was greeted loudly by the criminal inmates on the third floor, who would thank me for saving the thief’s life.
Unfortunately I’ve forgotten much of what I experienced in the regional prison. I remember only that I was taken to GPU to be interrogated some more and attempts to have me confess to some sort of espionage were intensified. Conveyor-belt interrogations were repeated, during one of which the interrogating chekist fell asleep. The head of the First Department came in and woke him up. Now in trouble, the chekist, who had formerly been very polite to me, and who was wearing leather boots, began to kick me in the legs. Not long after this, already worn out by the conveyor-belt and sitting with my head bowed low, I noticed that three head chekists were standing facing me, watching me. On their orders I was taken to the basement of GPU and locked up in a very small punishment cell. While the escort soldiers were changing me, they noticed very large bruises on my legs and asked me what they were from. I answered that I had been beaten by a certain chekist. In the basement, in the punishment cell, I was tormented for several days under very severe conditions. Later I found out that the results of my first interrogation for espionage, which had been passed along to GPU Moscow, had been declared invalid and it had been ordered that a new investigation be undertaken. Evidently this was why I had been held for so long in the regional prison and subjected to a second conveyor-belt.
Although the second investigation didn’t bring any results, I was nonetheless exiled for the third time - for three years to Siberia.
This time I was transported via Almaty and Novosibirsk and not Moscow. On the road to Kransnoyarsk I was very shamelessly robbed by the petty thieves in our wagon. With all the prisoners watching, a young petty thief, the son of a Leningrad prosecutor, sat down beside me and distracted me while behind him two other petty thieves emptied my suitcase.
In Krasnoyarsk we were kept for a short time in a kind of transfer prison on the edge of the city and from there taken to the settlement Bolshaya Murta, approximately one hundred and thirty versts from Krasnoyarsk. In the beginning I was in great need without a permanent place to live, though before too long I was given a room at the hospital and worked there with the local doctor and his wife, who was also a doctor. Later they told me that I could barely walk, so weak was I after being fed so poorly in the prison in Tashkent, and that I looked like a decrepit old man to them. However, before long I got stronger and undertook serious surgical work in the hospital in Murta.
I was sent a great many medical case histories from the department for the surgical treatment of purulent wounds in Tashkent, which made it possible for me to write many chapters for my book "Notes on the Surgical Treatment of Purulent Wounds".
I was summoned unexpectedly to GPU Murta and, to my surprise, told that I was being allowed to travel to the city of Tomsk to work in the extensive medical faculty library that existed there. It is quite likely that this was a result of the letter I had sent to Marshal Kliment Voroshilov from prison in Tashkent requesting an opportunity to finish my work on purulent wounds, something altogether essential for military field surgery.
In Tomsk I settled in an apartment that had been put at my disposal by one deeply religious woman. In two months I managed to read all of the newest literature that existed on the surgical treatment of purulent wounds in German, French, and English, copying out large chunks of them. Upon my return to Bolshaya Murta I completely finished my large book "Notes on the Surgical Treatment of Purulent Wounds".
The summer of 1941 came and Hitler’s hordes, finishing up with the western countries, invaded the USSR. At the end of July the head surgeon of the Krasnoyarsk district flew to Bolshaya Murta and asked me to fly back with him to Krasnoyarsk, where I was made head surgeon of evacuation hospital 15-15. The hospital occupied three floors of a large building that had formerly been a school. I worked there for more than two years and the memories that remain of that work are bright and joyful.
I was very well-liked by the wounded officers and soldiers. Whenever I would make my rounds in the morning, the wounded greeted me with joy. Those who had been operated on unsuccessfully before in other hospitals for wounds of the large joints and who I had managed to heal invariably saluted me by lifting their straight legs high into the air.
After the war I wrote a short book "Late Resection of Infected Wounds of the Large Joints", which I submitted together with the large work "Notes on the Surgical Treatment of Purulent Wounds" to be considered for the Stalin prize.
Upon completion of work in evacuation hospital 15-15, I received a formal letter of gratitude from Western Siberia Military District Command, and when the war finished was decorated with the medal `For valorous work in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945`.
The Holy Synod, under the Patriarchal Locum Tenens Metropolitan Sergius, considered my treatment of the wounded valorous hierarchal service and elevated me to the rank of archbishop.
I combined my treatment of the wounded in Krasnoyarsk with my service as a hierarch in the diocese of Krasnoyarsk and every Sunday and Feast day walked to a small cemetery church far outside of the city, for there was no other church in Krasnoyarsk. The mud was so bad that once, halfway to the church, I got stuck, fell down in the mud, and had to return home.
It wasn`t possible to serve a hierarchal service as the only person there who could help me was an old priest, and so I limited myself to zealously preaching the word of God.
When my exile came to an end in 1943, I returned to Moscow, and was assigned to Tambov, a district where there had been 110 churches before the revolution and where I found only two – in Tambov and Michurinsk. With lots of free time on my hands, in Tambov I once again combined my service in the Church with work in hospitals for the wounded for approximately two years.
In 1946 I was awarded the Stalin Prize of the First degree for my "Notes on the Surgical Treatment of Purulent Wounds" and "Late Resection of Infected Wounds of the Large Joints".
In May 1946 I was transferred to the position of archbishop of Simferopol and Crimea. A group of students set off to meet me at the train station with flowers, though the meeting was not be as I took a plane. That was 26 May, 1946.
(Archbishop Luke died on 11 June, 1961 and was buried in Simferopol, where he served as archbishop for 15 years.)
OTHER BOOKS BY PETER SEKIRIN:
"The Dostoevsky Archive" (McFarland Publishers 2013), a biography of one the world's best novelists.
"Memories of Chekhov" (McFarland Publishers 2011), a new biography of a great palywright.
Translated from Russian into English:
"Divine and Human" (Zondervan 2000)
"Wise Thoughts on God and Love" (Arcade-Hachette, 2007)
"Chekhov Stories of Crime and Suspense" (Pegasus Books, 2010)
"Calendar of Wisdom" (Scribner 1997, 2012)