_-_Luke_of_Steiris_01.jpg)
Saint Luc le
Thaumaturge, mosaïque, XIe siècle, Monastère de Hosios Loukas
Saint Luc le jeune
ermite
en Grèce (✝ 945)
ou Luc le thaumaturge.
Ermite et faiseur de miracles il vivait seul en Thessalie dans un lieu qui s'appela Sotérion 'lieu de guérison'. Il voulait devenir religieux mais fut arrêté comme esclave en fuite et emprisonné quelques temps. Il devint ensuite ermite au Mont Joannitsa près de Corinthe où il était admiré pour la sainteté de sa vie et les miracles qu'il faisait et qui lui méritèrent le surnom de thaumaturge.
À Sotérion en Phocide, l’an 945, saint Luc le Jeune, ermite.
Martyrologe romain
SOURCE : http://nominis.cef.fr/contenus/saint/11428/Saint-Luc-le-jeune.html
Saint Luc le Thaumaturge
Saint Luc le
Thaumaturge, ou saint Luc d' Hellade provenait d' une famille de petits
propriétaires de
l' île d' Egine en Grèce qui durent fuir les invasions
sarrazines...
Ayant tôt
reçu la vocation monastique, il partit à la recherche de moines dans la région
comprise aujourd' hui entre la Hongrie et la Bulgarie, mais il fut pris pour un
esclave fugitif et molesté. Il fut reconduit à la maison familiale où il fut
maltraité.
Il se rendit
près d' Athènes dans une communauté religieuse, mais le supérieur au bout d' un
certain temps lui ordonna de retourner chez lui pour subvenir aux besoins de sa
mère Euphrosyne. Elle accepta finalement la vocation de son fils.
Il mena une
vie érémitique austère sur un mont près de Corinthe, après avoir été obligé de
fuir lors des invasions des païens venus du nord. Il est fêté le 7 février,
jour de sa mort en 955, par le Martyrologium romanum ainsi que par les
Eglises grecque et slaves.
Cette vie
illustre l' esprit d' obéissance et de sacrifice par la pérégrination, forcée (
les invasions ) ou acceptée ( la vie monastique ).
SOURCE : http://ut-pupillam-oculi.over-blog.com/article-5555574.html
St. Luke the Younger
Born on the Greek island of Aegina, St.
Luke the Younger was the son of farmers and the third of seven children.
Saracen raiders forced his family to leave their homeland for Thessaly, where
St. Luke the Younger worked in the fields and tended sheep. He was a
dutiful child, but his charity often frustrated his parents.
St. Luke the Younger frequently gave his own
food to those who were hungry and even offered beggars the clothes from his
back. When he sowed seeds in his family’s fields, he sometimes scattered half
in the neighboring fields of the poor. His family’s crops flourished, but his
parents still did not approve. After his father’s death, young Luke decided to
become a hermit. The decision angered his mother, who was hoping for a more
traditional secular life for her son. He left home to find a monastery.
St. Luke the Younger was captured by tribesmen
who mistook him for a runaway slave. He was imprisoned for a time, and then
returned home, where he was ridiculed for running away. Later, two monks on
their way to the Holy Land persuaded Luke’s mother to allow him to join a
monastery in Athens. St. Luke the Younger had hardly arrived before his
superior sent him home, claiming that his mother had appeared in a vision
calling for his help.
Eventually, St. Luke the Younger’s mother
understood her son’s call to religious life and no longer opposed him. Luke
built his hermitage on Mount Joannitsa, near Corinth. His reputation for
holiness, and his numerous miracles inspired people to call him , meaning
“miracle worker.” St. Luke the Younger became so popular that after his death
his cell was turned into an oratory.
Luke the Younger (AC)
(also known as Luke Thaumaturgus or the Wonder-worker)
Died c. 946. Saint Luke is known to the Greek Church as Luke the Wonderworker. His parents were farmers or peasant proprietors on the island of Aegina, but were forced off their land by attacking Saracens. They settled in Thessaly, Greece. Luke was the third of the seven children of Stephen and Euphrosyne. Although Luke was a pious and obedient boy generally, he often made them angry because of his charity to those poorer than himself. In childhood he often gave his meal away to the hungry, or would strip off his clothes for a beggar. When sowing seed, for instance, Luke the Wonderworker spread at least half of it over the fields of the poor instead of over his parents' fields. Later it was said that one of wonders God worked on Luke's behalf was to make his parents' crops yield more than anyone else's, even though he had given away half the seeds. But at the time his mother and father were extremely angry.
After Stephen's
death, Luke left the fields and gave himself for a time to contemplation. When
he told his family that he wanted to enter a monastery, they tried to stop him.
But Luke ran away. Unfortunately, some soldiers caught him and for a time put
him in prison, thinking he was a runaway slave. When he said that he was a
servant of Christ and had undertaken the journey out of devotion, they refused
to believe him. He was shut up in prison and cruelly treated until his identity
was discovered. He was allowed to return home where he was scolded for running
away.
In the end,
however, Luke got his way. Euphrosyne provided hospitality to two monks on
their way between Rome and the Holy Land. They managed to persuade his mother
to let him accompany them as far as Athens. There Luke was admitted as a novice
in a monastery, but he didn't stay long. One day the superior sent for him and
told the young saint that Luke's mother had appeared to him in a vision and
that, as she needed him, he must return home to help her. Luke went home once
again and was received with joy and surprise. After four months Euphrosyne herself
became convinced of her son's calling and no longer opposed his entering
religious life. So, age the age of 18, he built himself a hermitage on Mount
Joannitsa near Corinth and lived there happily for the rest of his life. Luke
is one of the earliest saints to be seen levitating in prayer. He worked so
many miracles there that the site was turned into an oratory after his death
and became known as Soterion or Sterion (place of healing) and he himself as
the Thaumaturgus (the wonder-worker) (Benedictines, Bentley, Walsh).
SOURCE : http://www.saintpatrickdc.org/ss/0207.shtml
Saint Luke the Younger
Also
known as- Luke of Aegina
- Luke of Mount Joannitsa
- Luke of the Soterion
- Luke the Thaumaturgus
- Luke the Wonder-Worker
Profile
Third of seven children born to Stephen and Euphrosyne, small land-owning farmers; the family was forced to flee to Thessaly ahead of Saracen raids on their home island. In his youth Luke worked the fields and tended sheep to help support his family, but when his father died, the young man followed a call to religious life, gave away all his property to the poor (which put him in conflict with his relatives) and left home to pursue his calling. Settling as a monk in the area of modern Hungary and Bulgaria, he was mistaken for a runaway slave and imprisoned for a while. Eventually released, he found that his family refused to have anything else to do with him. He briefly joined a monastery in Athens, Greece, but the superior there received a dream in which Luke’s mother was calling for help, so he sent the young man home. His mother finally accepted Luke’s call to religious life, and he became a hermit on Mount Joannitsa near Corinth, Greece. He healed so many people by prayer that his hermitage became know as the Soterion (the place of healing; place of safety), and Luke as as Thaumaturgus (Wonder worker).
Born
Died
Canonized
Representation
- holding his hermitage
SOURCE : http://catholicsaints.info/saint-luke-the-younger/
Today, 7 February on the Church’s calendar, we
commemorate the Venerable Luke the Younger (896-953), also known as St Luke ‘of
Mt Steirion’, ‘of Steiris’, and ‘of Hellas’. He is perhaps best remembered as
the founder of the Monastery of Osios Loukas (Venerable Luke), on the slopes of ‘the
great and godly mount / Of Helicon’ (Hesiod, ‘Theogony’, Hesiod and Theognis, trans.
Dorothea Wender [Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1976], p. 23) between Delphi and
Levadia near the coast of the Gulf of Corinth in Boeotia, Greece. Born quite
close to Delphi and baptised ‘Stephen’, at a young age (14) St Luke secretly
left home with some monks to join a monastery in Athens—according to this article
from Road to Emmaus, thought to have
been ‘the Monastery of Atheniotissa on
the Acropolis, the formerly pagan Parthenon’, though the Vita of St Luke on the monastery’s website identifies it as Pantanassa, in
Monastiraki.
The great emphasis, however, of most of the accounts of St Luke’s life that
I’ve looked at—the Prologue, Bulgakov’s Handbook, and the RTE article I
mentioned above—is the lesson St Luke soon learned in filial devotion.
According to the latter article,
which gives the fullest account of this incident:
His mother [Euphrosyne], already a
widow, entreated God day and night to bring Luke back to her. Far from
intending to hinder his calling, this pious woman had taught him to value God’s
service above all else, but she had not expected him to leave her at such a
young age and his disappearance brought her to despair. The Lord heard her
prayers and for three continuous nights the abbot of the Athenian monastery was
discomfited by a dream of Stephen’s mother begging for her son’s return.
Finally, the abbot called Stephen to him and curtly sent him home, suggesting
that he pursue a life of quiet somewhere else with the words, ‘Under the
present circumstances it is quite impossible that you fail to return to your
mother. . . Her prayer, it seems, is exceedingly persuasive to God and able to
overpower you own . . . Depart then from us, and from the borders of Attica,
and give yourself back to the person who gave you birth, and from whom, for
three nights now, I have undergone ten thousand harrassments.’
Thanks to God, however, St Luke’s mother, as was said, had no intention of
preventing his tonsure into the monastic life. After living ‘with her in
complete humility and obedience for four months, and, asking her blessing for
his ascetical efforts of monasticism, he left his parental home, intending to
lead a life of a hermit’ (Bulgakov).
It seems he lived in various locations around southern Greece, spending most of
his time—a 7-yr stretch, and then, 10 years later, a 12-yr stretch—in
‘Ioannitzi’, where he was tonsured by some elders on pilgrimage. During his
first seven years there, according to a brief life of the Saint by Photios Kontoglou, ‘Above all his faith in God shone, simple, like a
tree rooted in his heart.’ St Nicholas (Velimirović) tells us,
‘At night he prayed to God and during the day he worked in the garden and in
the field, not for his sake but for the sake of the indigent and the visitors.
However, Luke fed only on bread made of barley.’
In 945, St Luke finally settled at the present site of the monastery, which,
being near the village of Steiri, earned him the name of ‘Steirites’. According
to this account:
‘Here brethren gathered to the monk, and there emerged a small monastery, the
church of which was dedicated to the Great Martyress Barbara. Dwelling in the
monastery, the monk worked many miracles, healing sicknesses both of soul and
of body.’ Finally, he received the foreknowledge of his coming repose, and, in
Kontoglou’s words,
‘Three months before his falling asleep he went round to all of the villages
and places of asceticism and asked forgiveness of all.’
St Luke went to be with the Lord on 7 February 953 (there is a discrepancy on
this year—I have gone with Kontoglou and the monastery). His relics were myrrh-gushing
and bestowed grace and healing on all who venerated them, and the Venerable
one’s disciples built a new church over them shortly after his repose.
Unfortunately, sometime in the later Middle Ages they were taken elsewhere and,
there being two different stories of how they came to be there (see the monastery
website), ended up in Venice. Thanks be to God,
in 1986 they were correctly identified and returned to the monastery, where
they reside to this day.
I made a pilgrimage to Osios Loukas in May of 2004, driving there from Athens
by myself. The location of the monastery on the slopes of the mountain, with a
view of the distant gulf, coupled with the beautiful architecture and the
absolutely stunning mosaics, made this the most beautiful monastery I have ever
seen. There are some photos here,
plus links to others. Also, there is a modern edition of a Byzantine Bios kai Politeia of St Luke here.
Unfortunately, I discovered it rather late in the writing of this post, and
this, coupled with my abysmal knowledge of Ancient Greek, precluded its use in
this post. But those whose skills in that noble language exceed my own may wish
to avail themselves of this source.
SOURCE : http://logismoitouaaron.blogspot.ca/2009/02/his-faith-in-god-shonest-luke-younger.html
Venerable Luke of Hellas
Venerable Luke of Hellas
Saint Luke of Hellas was a native of the Greek village of Kastorion. The son of poor farmers, the saint from childhood had toiled much, working in the fields and shepherding the sheep. He was very obedient to his parents and very temperate in eating. He often gave his own food and clothing to the poor, for which he suffered reproach from his parents. He once gave away almost all the seed which was needed for planting in the fields. The Lord rewarded him for his charity, and the harvest gathered was greater than ever before.
As a child, he prayed fervently and often. His mother saw him more than once standing not on the ground, but in the air while he prayed.
After the death of his father, he left his mother and went to Athens, where he entered a monastery. But through the prayers of his mother, who was very concerned about him, the Lord returned him to his parental home in a miraculous manner. He spent four months there, then with his mother’s blessing he went to a solitary place on a mountain called Ioannou (or Ioannitsa). Here there was a church dedicated to the holy Unmercenaries Cosmas and Damian, where he lived an ascetical life in constant prayer and fasting. He was tonsured there by some Elders who were on pilgrimage. After this, St Luke redoubled his ascetic efforts, for which the Lord granted him the gift of foresight.
After a seven years on Ioannou, the saint moved to Corinth because of an invasion of the Bulgarian armies. Hearing about the exploits of a certain stylite at Patras, he went to see him, and remained for ten years to serve the ascetic with humility and obedience. Afterwards, the saint returned again to his native land and again began to pursue asceticism on Mount Ioannou.
The throngs of people flocking there disturbed his quietude, so with the blessing of his Elder Theophylactus, St Luke went with his disciple to a still more remote place at Kalamion. After three years, he settled on the desolate and arid island of Ampelon because of an invasion of the Turks. Steiris was another place of his ascetic efforts. Here brethren gathered to the monk, and a small monastery grew up, the church of which was dedicated to the Great Martyr Barbara. Dwelling in the monastery, the saint performed many miracles, healing sicknesses of soul and of body.
Foreseeing his end, the saint confined himself in a cell and for three months prepared for his departure. When asked where he was to be buried, the monk replied, “Throw my body into a ravine to be eaten by wild beasts.” When the brethren begged him to change these instructions, he commanded them to bury his body on the spot where he lay. Raising his eyes to heaven, he said, “Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit!”
St Luke fell asleep in the Lord on February 7, 946. Later, a church was built over his tomb. Myrrh flowed from his holy relics, and many healings occurred.
SOURCE : http://oca.org/saints/lives/2014/02/07/100458-venerable-luke-of-hellas
Life of the Saint
"Saint Luke of Hellas [also known as Osios Loukas O Steiriotis] was a native of the Greek village of Kastorion. The son of poor farmers, the saint from childhood had toiled much, working in the fields and shepherding the sheep. He was very obedient to his parents and very temperate in eating. He often gave his own food and clothing to the poor, for which he suffered reproach from his parents. He once gave away almost all the seed which was needed for planting in the fields. The Lord rewarded him for his charity, and the harvest gathered was greater than ever before.
As a child, he prayed fervently and often. His mother saw him more than once standing not on the ground, but in the air while he prayed.
After the death of his father, he left his mother and went to Athens, where he entered a monastery. But through the prayers of his mother, who was very concerned about him, the Lord returned him to his parental home in a miraculous manner. He spent four months there, then with his mother's blessing he went to a solitary place on a mountain called Ioannou (or Ioannitsa). Here there was a church dedicated to the holy Unmercenaries Cosmas and Damian, where he lived an ascetical life in constant prayer and fasting. He was tonsured there by some Elders who were on pilgrimage. After this, St Luke redoubled his ascetic efforts, for which the Lord granted him the gift of foresight.
After a seven years on Ioannou, the saint moved to Corinth because of an invasion of the Bulgarian armies. Hearing about the exploits of a certain stylite at Patras, he went to see him, and remained for ten years to serve the ascetic with humility and obedience. Afterwards, the saint returned again to his native land and again began to pursue asceticism on Mount Ioannou.
The throngs of people flocking there disturbed his quietude, so with the blessing of his Elder Theophylactus, St Luke went with his disciple to a still more remote place at Kalamion. After three years, he settled on the desolate and arid island of Ampelon because of an invasion of the Turks. Steiris was another place of his ascetic efforts. Here brethren gathered to the monk, and a small monastery grew up, the church of which was dedicated to the Great Martyr Barbara. Dwelling in the monastery, the saint performed many miracles, healing sicknesses of soul and of body.
Foreseeing his end, the saint confined himself in a cell and for three months prepared for his departure. When asked where he was to be buried, the monk replied, "Throw my body into a ravine to be eaten by wild beasts." When the brethren begged him to change these instructions, he commanded them to bury his body on the spot where he lay. Raising his eyes to heaven, he said, "Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit!"
St Luke fell asleep in the Lord on February 7, 946. Later, a church was built over his tomb. Myrrh flowed from his holy relics, and many healings occurred."
(http://ocafs.oca.org/FeastSaintsViewer.asp?SID=4&ID=1&FSID=100458)
For another researched, annotated life of the Saint, see:
http://logismoitouaaron.blogspot.com/2009/02/his-faith-in-god-shonest-luke-younger.html.
The Relics of the Saint
"Tradition has it that the Hosios’ holy relics had been removed during the 13th century by the Crusaders and had been taken to the Vatican. They later surfaced in Venice accompanied by the following legend: when the Turks conquered Boeotia in 1460, a group of monks, carrying the Hosios’ relics, found refuge on the island of Lefkada. After the island fell to the Turks, the relics were transported to Bosnia. In July 1463, Bosnia also fell to the turks and Franciscan monks transported the holy relics to Venice. Much confusion had already been caused and it was thought that Hosios Loukas’ relics in fact belonged to St. Luke [the Evangelist] who had also been buried in Thebes [and whose relics had also been taken to an area outside Venice]. On the 16th of December 1464, following numerous talks, it was proved that the relics which had been moved to Italy were in fact those of the monk of the Eastern Church, Loukas Steiriotis.
On the 11th of October 1986, after 526 years and coordinated efforts by the Diocese of Thebes and Levadia and local officials, a delegation headed by the Bishop of Thebes and Levadia Ieronymous [the current Archbishop of Greece], the ex-bishop Nikodemos, the then abbot of the Monastery Nikodemos and the then dean and current abbot, Georgios, collected the holy relics and replaced them in the reliquary of the Katholikon at the Monastery of Hosios Loukas, on the 13th of December 1986."
(http://www.osiosloukas.gr/english_xml/index.html)
SOURCE : http://full-of-grace-and-truth.blogspot.ca/2010/02/st-luke-righteous-of-mount-steirion-and.html
Voir aussi : http://www.oramaworld.com/en/p/110043/Saint_Luke_of_Mount_Steirion_-_Hand-Painted_Icon
http://www.abbamoses.com/months/february.html
https://citydesert.wordpress.com/2014/06/25/luke-the-younger-hermit/
