10th century
A former soldier who became a monk and priest after surviving war and later lived as a stylite near Chalcedon.
Our Venerable Father Luke the New Stylite of Chalcedon
Luke the New Stylite was a tenth-century Byzantine ascetic who, after a career as a soldier, withdrew to monastic life and became a pillar-dweller (stylite) near Chalcedon, across the Bosphorus from Constantinople. He is commemorated on December 11 and is distinct from Luke the Evangelist.
According to his synaxarion, Luke served as a soldier under the emperors of his day and survived a war against the Bulgarians in which many men were killed. Attributing his survival to divine providence, he abandoned military life, became a monk, and was ordained a presbyter before taking up the rigorous discipline of the stylites. He is remembered for forty-five years spent atop a pillar at Chalcedon, where he was credited with a gift of wonderworking.
By a flood of tears you made the desert fertile,
and your longing for God brought forth fruits in abundance.
By the radiance of miracles you illumined the whole universe!
O our holy father Luke, pray to Christ our God to save our souls!
Text used with permission of the Orthodox Church in America (oca.org).
The anchor record places Luke's origin in the region of Constantinople in the tenth century. One synaxarion tradition adds further detail, stating that he was born around 919 in the Eastern theme, the son of parents named Christopher and Kalee, though these particulars are not uniformly attested and his dates are reported with uncertainty across sources.
Luke is remembered for an especially severe asceticism. Beyond the chains he bound upon himself before mounting his first pillar, the synaxarion tradition relates that he kept a sparse diet of bread and raw cabbage and fasted six days of the week. The same tradition recounts that at Mount Olympus he placed a stone in his mouth, like a bridle, to keep himself from speaking.
The stylite vocation that Luke embraced was an established form of Eastern Christian monasticism in which an ascetic lived atop a pillar, exposed to the elements, as a discipline of prayer and self-denial.
Browse other saints who share his calling and place.