The author of this book, Saint Luke the Confessor (secular name Valentine Voino-Jasenetstky) of Simferopol and Crimea was born on 27th April 1877 in Kertch, Crimea and he passed away to rest in Christ on 11th June 1961 in Simferopol, Crimea. He was the descendant of a White-Russian-Polish impoverished princely line. By the end of his life he was an archbishop of the Russian Orthodox Church and at the same time a prominent physician, surgeon, scientist-researcher, inventor, author of scientific and theological works and painter. At the time of the civil war after the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, when their consistent morbid and deadly persecution of the clergy was at full swing, Valentin Voino-Jasenetsky consented to be ordained as priest, and later he took monastic vows with the name Luke (after the Apostle and Evangelist Luke) and he was ordained as bishop. Being an intelligent and powerful spiritual pastor he was persecuted by the Soviet authorities. They convicted him on the
