The Sermons

Preaching ran through St. Luke’s whole ministry, from the day of his ordination in 1921 — when his bishop charged him especially with the pulpit — to his last sermon on Forgiveness Sunday in 1961. Over thirty-eight years he is credited with well over a thousand sermons, of which hundreds were preserved in writing and have been published in twelve volumes; the later ones, composed after he went blind, were dictated. This file covers the corpus of his preaching, its preservation, and its character as one of the great pulpit ministries of the twentieth-century Russian Church, sustained against a state that worked to silence the Church’s preaching.

Tradition: Russian Orthodox / New Martyrs and Confessors (canonized 2000)

A Preacher from His Ordination

St. Luke’s preaching was not a late accomplishment but a charge laid on him at the very beginning. When Bishop Innokenty of Tashkent ordained him priest in 1921, he assigned the eloquent professor in particular to the ministry of preaching, making him responsible for the cathedral’s pulpit (Voino-Yasenetsky, I Loved Suffering; see Ordination in Tashkent (1921)). The gift was real — the same fluency that had made him the soul of student gatherings and a formidable witness before tribunals — and he poured it into the pulpit for the next four decades, through priesthood, episcopate, prison, and exile, wherever he was permitted to serve.

The Corpus

The scale of the corpus is considerable and is recorded with figures in the Orthodox-reference literature: across his thirty-eight years as a preacher he is credited with composing about 1,250 sermons, of which some 750 were preserved in writing and gathered into twelve volumes (orthodoxwiki.org, Luke (Voino-Yasenetsky)) [the figures (~1,250 preached, ~750 preserved in twelve volumes) are those given in the Orthodox-reference literature, e.g. orthodoxwiki.org, and are reported as such]. This makes him one of the most prolific preachers of the modern Russian Church, and the survival of so large a portion — in a period when the Church’s word was under official suppression — is itself a small triumph of preservation by his faithful.

The sermons range across the liturgical year and the whole of Christian doctrine and life, and they bear the unmistakable stamp of their author: the precision of a man trained to think clearly, the imagery of one who had spent his life among bodies and their suffering, and the directness of a confessor who had nothing left to fear. His scientific learning and his pastoral tenderness meet in them, as they met in Spirit, Soul and Body; the preacher and the surgeon-theologian are one voice (see Spirit, Soul and Body and Science and Religion).

The most remarkable circumstance of his late preaching is that the greater part of his Crimean sermons were composed after he had lost his sight. Wholly blind in his last years, he went on preaching at the Liturgy from memory, and went on producing new sermons by dictation to those who served him, so that the corpus continued to grow even when its author could no longer read or write (orthodoxwiki.org; OCA, Lives of the Saints; see Crimea (1946–1961)). His last sermon was preached on Forgiveness Sunday at the beginning of Lent in 1961, a few months before his death (orthodoxwiki.org; OCA). That a blind old man, a Stalin Prize-winning surgeon who could no longer see his congregation, went on composing and delivering sermons to the end is among the most characteristic facts of his life — the pulpit, like the operating table, a post he would not leave.

A Pulpit Under Persecution

The preaching ministry takes its full meaning from its setting. The Soviet state worked steadily to silence the Church’s word — restricting preaching, harassing preachers, and, under Khrushchev after 1958, renewing the assault on the pulpits altogether (see Crimea (1946–1961) and New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia). That St. Luke preached so much, so boldly, and so long — and that so much of it survived — is therefore not merely a literary fact but part of his confession. He had told the NKVD that he could be reckoned a “counter-revolutionary” only insofar as that followed from his preaching the Gospel (see The Three Exiles); the twelve volumes of sermons are the form that “counter-revolution” took. The preached word was, for the blind archbishop, the same witness he had made with the scalpel and the cross — and the one the state found hardest of all to extinguish.

The Charge Laid at His Ordination

It is worth dwelling on the origin of this ministry, because preaching was not a thing St. Luke drifted into but a charge formally laid on him. When Bishop Innokenty of Tashkent ordained him priest in 1921, he singled out the new priest — already a celebrated professor of surgery and a fluent speaker — for the work of the pulpit, entrusting him in particular with the duty of preaching in the cathedral (Voino-Yasenetsky, I Loved Suffering; see Ordination in Tashkent (1921)). The charge fixed the shape of the whole ministry that followed. From that day the pulpit was not an occasional exercise but an assigned office, one he carried through priesthood and episcopate, through prison and three exiles, into the blind years of his Crimean episcopate. The continuity is striking: the man who delivered his last sermon on Forgiveness Sunday in 1961 was discharging, four decades on, the very commission given him in 1921, and he understood it so. The pulpit was a post like the operating table, taken up under obedience and held to the end.

The Character of the Preaching

The sermons bear an unmistakable and unrepeatable stamp, the fusion of three things rarely found together. There is, first, the precision of a scientist — the habits of a mind trained to define, to distinguish, and to reason in order, brought to bear on the doctrines and mysteries of the faith. There is, second, a pastoral tenderness, the compassion of a man who had spent his life over suffering bodies and who spoke to his hearers as a physician of souls who knew what pain was. And there is, third, the boldness of a confessor — the directness of one who had faced tribunals and interrogators and had nothing left to fear from any human power, and who therefore preached the Gospel plainly under a state that punished plain preaching (Voino-Yasenetsky, I Loved Suffering; see Spirit, Soul and Body). The same voice that wrote Spirit, Soul and Body speaks in the sermons; the surgeon, the theologian, and the confessor are one preacher (see Science and Religion). It is this combination — scientific clarity, pastoral warmth, and fearless witness — that gives his preaching its particular authority and accounts for the care with which it was preserved.

The Discipline of Dictation

That the corpus continued to grow after he lost his sight is among the most telling facts about it. Wholly blind in his last years, St. Luke could neither read his sources nor write his texts, yet he did not allow the pulpit to fall silent; he composed his later sermons by dictation to those who served him, shaping and delivering them from a memory stocked by a lifetime of study and prayer (orthodoxwiki.org, Luke (Voino-Yasenetsky); OCA, Lives of the Saints; see Crimea (1946–1961)). The discipline this required is considerable: to build a sermon in the mind, hold it whole, and give it out by word of mouth, week after week, without the aids of sight. A large portion of the surviving Crimean sermons were composed in this way, so that the very disability that might have ended his preaching instead produced some of its most characteristic fruit. The blind old archbishop dictating his sermons is of a piece with the blind old archbishop serving the Liturgy from memory: the ministry was not curtailed by the loss of sight but carried on through it (orthodoxwiki.org).

The Twelve Volumes as Witness

The scale of the preserved corpus gives it a weight beyond the literary. Of the roughly 1,250 sermons he is credited with preaching across his thirty-eight years in the pulpit, some 750 survive, gathered into twelve volumes — a body of homiletic work that ranks among the largest of the modern Russian Church (orthodoxwiki.org, Luke (Voino-Yasenetsky)). That so much survived is itself a kind of confession by his faithful, accomplished in a period when the state worked to suppress the Church’s word. The sermons were taken down, copied, and kept by those who heard them, against the grain of an official policy that restricted preaching and harassed preachers, and the twelve volumes are the residue of that quiet labor of preservation (orthodoxwiki.org; see New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia). The corpus is thus not only the record of a great preaching ministry but a monument to the faithfulness that kept it — the preached word saved from a state that wished it unsaid, and handed on.

References

Voino-Yasenetsky, Valentin (Archbishop Luke). «Я полюбил страдание» [I Loved Suffering]. Autobiography. (azbyka.ru.) — The charge to preach given at his ordination; the lifelong preaching ministry.
Voino-Yasenetsky, Valentin (Archbishop Luke). Проповеди [Sermons]. Collected in twelve volumes. — The corpus of his preaching.
Luke (Voino-Yasenetsky) of Simferopol and Crimea. orthodoxwiki.org. — The figures of c. 1,250 sermons preached and c. 750 preserved in twelve volumes; composing by dictation when blind; the last sermon on Forgiveness Sunday.
Venerable Luke (Voino-Yasenetsky). Orthodox Church in America (oca.org). — The blind archbishop’s preaching from memory and by dictation.