Venerable Luke of Steiris (Hosios Loukas)

Venerable Luke was born around 896 in the village of Kastorion in Phocis, third of seven children in the pious farming family of Stephen and Euphrosyne, who had once fled Arab raids from the island of Aegina. From youth he was noted for special charity — giving away the family's harvest and possessions to the poor. As a boy he tried to enter monastic life in Athens but was called back by his mother; after her death he was properly tonsured.

At about age 44 (some sources say earlier) he became a hermit, spending seven years in a cell near the church of the Unmercenaries Cosmas and Damian on Mount Ioannitsa (near modern Vardousia). During Arab coastal raids he withdrew to the deserted island of Eleutherna (Ampelon) in the Gulf of Corinth, then settled in the Helicon mountains.

He acquired the gift of clairvoyance: he foretold the Byzantine emperor's liberation of Crete from Arab rule (fulfilled in 961, after the saint's repose), foresaw Bulgarian invasions, located hidden funds, and exposed a murderer. He is considered one of the earliest saints for whom the gift of levitation in prayer is attested in writing.

He gathered disciples on Helicon; around the church he built in honor of the Great Martyr Barbara a monastic community formed (c. 943-946) near Steiris in Boeotia — later becoming the famous Hosios Loukas Monastery, a monument of Byzantine architecture now on the UNESCO World Heritage list.

He reposed on February 7, 953, in his cell. His relics exuded myrrh and effected healings; during the period of Latin rule they were taken by Crusaders and ended up in Italy under Vatican custody; they were solemnly returned by the Roman Catholic Church to the Hosios Loukas Monastery on December 13, 1986, where they rest in the katholikon to this day.

His feast is kept on February 7/20 (repose) and May 3 (translation of relics).

IMPORTANT CORRECTION: both the impossible dating "4th-15th century" and the contaminated date shared by five different saints named Luke ("April 22/May 5/October 18/April 11/April 24") have been removed — the correct individual date, February 7/20, has been established. Both of the entry's former images (whose own metadata explicitly pointed to "Luke (Voino-Yasenetsky) of Crimea," not this 10th-century saint) have been moved to the correct entry, luke_crimea — this entry is temporarily left without images.