Saint Luke the Physician – Engraved Lithograph – Mount Athos

Description

Engraved Lithograph with Saint Luke the Physician

Saint Luke, who was canonized in May 1996 by the Russian Orthodox Church, was a Russian hierarch and professor-surgeon.

Archbishop Luke was born on April 27, 1877, in Kerch, in the easternmost part of Crimea. From a young age, he showed interest in helping those who suffered. For this reason, he chose to study medicine, seeing it as a field of social contribution. He married nurse Anna Vasilievna, with whom he had four children, but at the age of 38, he lost his wife to tuberculosis. He never remarried and often visited her grave.

He worked tirelessly, deeply committed to his dream: to save more and more lives, alleviating human suffering and pain. In his efforts, he often reached the point of exhaustion, but he never gave up, drawing strength from long prayers and his love for Christ.

Saint Luke, as a physician, published forty scientific works. One of his classic works, published in 1934, is the book “Essays on the Surgery of Pyogenic Infections,” which laid the foundation for an entire medical specialty, and his work continues to be used in medicine today. In 1946, he was awarded the Stalin Prize, the highest distinction in pre-war Russia for all his scientific publications. He refused the award (an unimaginable reaction at that time), donating the prize money to the poor.

Saint Luke was a devout Christian. He never missed a liturgy and stood through all the night vigils and matins, on Saturdays, Sundays, and Orthodox feast days. In the operating room, he always had an icon of the Virgin Mary, before which he prayed for a few minutes before each surgery. Then, with a cotton swab soaked in iodine, he would make the sign of the cross on the patient’s body where the incision would be made. Only after this would he formally say “the scalpel.”

Engraved Lithograph: Characteristics

The artwork is entirely hand-crafted, without machines, on carved natural wood. It is the work of the iconographer Athanasios, a student of the Athoniada Ecclesiastical Academy, who remains faithful to Byzantine art as taught to him on Mount Athos. His works are coated with pure beeswax to ensure they remain unchanged over time.

In this particular image, the monk iconographer used the lithography technique, creating a piece of unique beauty. Specifically, by using a lithographed copy of Byzantine art, the monk created this work following the traditional method of artificial aging, as taught in the iconography workshops of the Athonite State. The artificial aging of the icon is hand-made, a process to which the monks of Mount Athos give particular importance.

Since the icon is hand-crafted and the wood processing is entirely done by hand, there may be small variations in the dimensions of each icon.

The icon is available upon request.

Origin: Mount Athos