Beloved Physician: how science and faith serve Christ
Священная история сохранила уникальное свидетельство о враче, который остался рядом со святым апостолом Павлом в самые тяжелые времена.
In the half-darkness of a Roman prison, when the end of his earthly journey seemed inevitable, the holy Apostle Paul takes up a reed pen and writes his final lines. Around him there is silence. Bishops, disciples and companions have been sent off to distant communities. Some could not endure the burden of persecution and returned to worldly affairs. And amid this abandonment come words in which a piercing gratitude can be heard: “Only Luke is with me” (2 Tim. 4:11).
Scripture points to the craft of this faithful companion. In the Epistle to the Colossians, the Apostle Paul calls him “Luke, the beloved physician” (Col. 4:14). Beside the prisoner bound in chains there remains not merely a fellow preacher, but a professional physician. The ancient historian Eusebius of Caesarea recorded in his writings: “Luke, a native of Antioch and a physician by education, was for the most part together with Paul.”
Syrian Antioch in that era was a major cultural center of the Roman Empire, where the art of medicine stood at a high level of development. Having received a classical education, the native of Antioch abandoned a successful practice in order to share with the chief apostle his labors, dangers and shipwrecks.
A Clinical Eye on the Pages of the Gospel
When one reads the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Holy Apostles, the author’s attention to manifestations of bodily infirmity stands out.
In the accounts of healings, the attentive gaze of a specialist can be discerned.
Where the other evangelists write simply of a fever, Saint Luke uses strict terminology. Describing the healing of the Apostle Peter’s mother-in-law, he noted: “was taken with a great fever” (Lk. 4:38). In ancient medicine, including the works of the scholar Galen, fevers were divided into “great” and “small” according to the intensity of the heat and the degree of danger to a person’s life. In the account of the leper, the evangelist wrote that he was “full of leprosy” (Lk. 5:12), recording an advanced stage of the disease.
And in the Acts, telling of the events on the island of Malta after the grievous shipwreck, the evangelist described the ailment of Publius’ father: “lay sick of a fever and of a bloody flux” (Acts 28:8). In the original Greek text there stands here a specific medical term describing a severe affliction of the intestines, which in ancient literature often appears alongside the term for fever.
Even in the parable of the Good Samaritan, the order in which the wounds are treated reflects the practice of the time. The Samaritan bandages the injured man’s wounds, pouring in “oil and wine” (Lk. 10:34). This combination of an antiseptic and a soothing agent was considered the classic means of treating bodily injuries.
In the nineteenth century, the scholar William Hobart collected about four hundred specific terms in the evangelist’s texts, arguing for his professional education.
It is not without reason that Scripture calls Saint Luke a physician, and his attention to human suffering is illumined by deep mercy.
Healing as Service
In the Old Testament tradition, the attitude toward medicine was at times ambiguous. It was once believed that turning to physicians showed a weak faith in God's help. But the Book of Jesus, the Son of Sirach, sets clear spiritual guidelines: «Honor a physician according to your need of him with the honors due him, for the Lord created him; for healing comes from the Most High» (Sir. 38:1–2). The writer stated directly that one should pray not only for a miracle, but also for the physician's wisdom: «For they too will pray to the Lord that He grant them success in diagnosis and in healing, for the sake of preserving life» (Sir. 38:14).
The holy fathers developed this thought. Saint Basil the Great noted in his ascetic rules: «Just as one should not wholly shun the art of medicine, so it is inappropriate to place all one's hope in it.» And Saint John Chrysostom, reflecting on the illnesses of the Apostle Timothy, emphasized that the Apostle Paul did not heal his disciple by a miracle, but advised him to use the customary remedies of medical science.
Medicine, in the Christian understanding, is an opportunity granted by the Creator to ease the suffering of one's neighbor.
It is no coincidence that the ancient unmercenary saints Cosmas and Damian of Asia took a strict vow to treat people free of charge, seeing Christ Himself in every patient.
The Path of the Holy Surgeon
This profound understanding of the physician's duty has passed through the centuries. At the end of the nineteenth century in Kiev, a young student, Valentin Voyno-Yasenetsky, enrolled in the medical faculty of the Imperial University of Saint Vladimir. While studying in Kiev, the young man traveled every day, and sometimes twice a day, to the Kiev Caves Lavra.
A gifted painter who had graduated from the Kiev Art School, he deliberately gave up a career as an artist. His goal was to become a village, zemstvo doctor in order to help poor people.
Having gone through the harsh school of zemstvo medicine, he became an outstanding surgeon and the author of works on purulent surgery. And in 1923, at the height of the fierce persecution of the Church, in Tashkent Bishop Andrew (Ukhtomsky) performed his secret monastic tonsure. The bishop intended to give the newly tonsured monk the name of the healer Panteleimon. But after reflecting on the confessor's labors and sermons, he chose a different name for him. As the saint himself later recalled, he «found that the name of the apostle, evangelist, physician and icon painter Luke suited me far better.»
Thus two destinies became intertwined. Saint Luke of Crimea went through Stalin's camps, exiles and tortures, but never abandoned his medical service. Before every operation the holy surgeon prayed before the icon of the Mother of God that hung in the operating room, and made a cross of iodine on the patient's body. For him, as for the evangelist, healing was inseparably linked with prayer.
The Sick Person in His Wholeness
In his advice to young doctors and surgeons, Saint Luke tirelessly repeated: behind anatomical details and grave diagnoses one must learn to see the whole sick person, with all his emotional pain, fears and hopes.
It is precisely this approach that we find on the pages of the Gospel of Luke.
The holy apostle does not simply describe the clinical manifestations of illnesses. His Gospel is called the Gospel of mercy.
On its pages the Savior appears as the Physician of souls and bodies, the Caretaker of the outcast, and the Comforter of those who mourn.
The holy Apostle Luke ended his earthly journey in deep old age, leaving the Church a great legacy. His image reminds each of us that professional knowledge, human compassion, and fidelity to God can be united in one blessed ministry. And in the most difficult times, when human strength is exhausted, a true Christian is always at the side of the one who needs his help.
