Two recent miracles of St. Luke the Surgeon

St. Luke the Surgeon, Archbishop of Simferopol (source)

 

1. My son, E., was diagnosed with cancer of the right kidney, and on 3/27/12 went to Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney, to have his kidney removed.

With tears, I entreated St. Luke to help my son in surgery, that everything would go well. We went to the hospital and were waiting in waiting room. I continued to entreat the help of St. Luke, using my prayer rope.

There as I was sitting, I sensed that St. Luke entered the room and sat next to my son and embraced him. He looked at me with a smile and said: “I traveled the whole road from Russia for E. Do not worry, everything will go well. That you might believe that I am next to him, you will see that no one will sit in the chair next to E., because I am sitting there.”

In reality, the whole row of chairs was filled across from me, while no one sat next to E.

They called my son's name to go into the OR, and before he entered, I sensed that St. Luke went before him.

The surgery lasted around three hours.

When they finished, he remained a short time in the post-op area, and then they took him to his room, where we went also.

Slowly, I began to speak to him. I said: “My boy, I entreated St. Luke the Physician to help you in surgery.”

He replied: “Daddy, before the surgery began, someone came and told me: 'My name is Luke, I am an Anesthesiologist.'”

I stopped. Every time I think of this, my eyes fill with tears. The surgery went well. I thank God, St. Luke and all the Saints.

The child did not need chemotherapy, nor any other medicine. Glory to God for everything.

2. I wanted to relate in writing my personal experience relating to the wondrous intervention of St. Luke the Russian, in the personal case of a friend of mine. This inscription is to add to the many witnesses of the wonderworking power of this newly-revealed Saint.

It was a Friday during May of 2009, and I was in Athens, where I was meeting two of my close friends. On account of my work, I am not often in Greece, and so every time that I return, we get together as usual. Thus, on that day, we spent three hours discussing various issues which we were dealing with, and which we could not discuss over the telephone. The atmosphere was always great, and my doctor friend (the other being a lawyer) was especially happy for his family and professional developments. We said our goodbyes, and we planned to get together three months later when I returned to Athens.

That following Tuesday, I received a phone call from my lawyer friend. The hour was in the afternoon in Greece. With a hesitating manner, he asked me if I was well, and if there was someone near me. Immediately I froze. He was preparing to tell me some bad news. That which he told me was truly upsetting: our close friend suffered a major stroke in the hospital, in the clinic where he was the director. Some unexpected state caused his blood pressure to skyrocket, and he immediately lost his senses. Despite his poor luck, at least they immediately transferred him to the ICU of the hospital where he was serving, and which he served as the director and manager.

Immediately I thought to go to Greece to support him and his wife and children, especially in spirit. The weight of my responsibilities however, did not allow me to go immediately, so my lawyer friend agreed to keep me informed of any updates to his status.

Our next few telephone conversations were difficult, terrible and worrisome, because the news was growing increasingly worse. Our friend was in a coma, and the prognosis was disappointing. The capsule of the brain had been damaged irreparably. The doctors did not give any hope. Our friend's wife was also a doctor. Both of them were professors of medicine and board-certified. Furthermore, their life was a continuous study and progress towards the advancement of medical science.

The first week passed amidst great concern, but hope that something would improve. His wife would communicate with us via telephone, and she was especially pessimistic regarding his medical state, but always asked us to pray and to relay her requests to any monks and people who would pray for the salvation of her suffering husband. Her faith was unshakable, that we must not loose our hopes in God. As the days passed, many events worsened his state (infections, respiratory issues, etc.) His wife sent the MRIs to the USA, and she called the three greatest neurosurgeons in Greece to examine him in the ICU. Their opinion was the same. They advised our friend's wife to prepare spiritually to accept his death, and to watch over their children (two boys). Her response was clear before many witnesses: “You can say that, but the Holy Mountain and the Saints have another opinion.”

She had hastened to many Monasteries and met monks and nuns to whom she related the serious state of her sick husband. Close friends of ours and myself personally had served Parakleses to St. Luke the Physician. One priest, on the 30^th day that my physician friend was in the ICU, visited him with relics of St. Luke the Russian. He crossed him and prayed fervently for his speedy deliverance.

That same evening, my friend's wife, who was sitting outside of the ICU taking a brake, was praying in agony on a chair, and expecting some change. She had within her a clear sense of some improvement. Straightaway she saw a priest with the Epitrachelion (stole) enter the ICU by himself. He disappeared. She remained in her seat. She thought that some other sick person was at his last moments, and that he was likely going to give him the Spotless Mysteries [Holy Communion]. She waited a short time, and without thinking why, she got up and entered the ICU with great agony. There was no one around her sick husband, nor anyone else in the ICU. She looked at her husband, who looked somewhat different (as she was a doctor). He began to move his left foot and, despite having suffered a stroke and being in a coma, he began to whisper unintelligible words to her!!! What she witnessed was truly astonishing. She called the doctors, and they all felt that the brain had begun to show other signs of reaction.

Over the next hours, the sick man opened his eyes and recognized his wife, without being able to speak. The new MRI showed almost total disappearance of the brain bleed and the rest of the signs of the brain lesion. Of course, there were no scientific explanations for this, and everyone accepted it at once. As such, the explanation was, in the words of the wife who was truly moved, that the priest who she saw enter the ICU was St. Luke the Physician! Two monks from different monasteries confirmed that they saw St. Luke confirm to them that the sick man will get well. In one month, he began to walk, and in four months, he was again lecturing, with support, at a medical conference in Athens, expounding on the theme that he had been assigned.

Today, two years later, my doctor friend again is serving at the hospital and continues his astonishing hours towards alleviating the pain of his fellow men. His wife has firm opinions regarding those things that took place, and she describes that his state, from a medical perspective, was unexplainable. The doctor who was formerly bed-ridden and on his death bed serves as a living witness of the wonders of the faith and the presence of St. Luke the Physician in his life. The former sick man himself had begun to relate what had occurred over the following days until he began to talk, and his witness is astonishing. His disclosure of all the wondrous events will occur at some point from himself and his wife, but in the mean time, they don't want any secular publication to interrupt their daily offering to their fellow man.

May we have the blessing of St. Luke the Physician, and all the Saints, that we might come to the knowledge of the true mutability of our rational ontology.

June 10^th, 2012.

D. K.

   

(amateur translation of the text from source)

   

Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us! Amen!