The archive of Saint Luka Krimski (Voyno-Yasenetsky), initially valued at two million rubles, was sold at auction in Moscow on July 7 for a total of eighty million rubles, Ivan Efimov, an expert at the Twelfth Chair auction house, told RIA Novosti.
The auction lasted three and a half hours. The entire archive of St. Luke – more than eighty items – was sold for a total of one million dollars, with a commission of more than eighty million rubles. The most expensive object turned out to be the saint’s manuscript “Outlines to a theological-political work” from 1943 about the Church’s support to the state in the fight against fascism. It was sold for 10.4 million rubles, and the starting price was forty thousand rubles. The theological treatise “On Evil and Suffering” was redeemed for more than seven million rubles.
Even before the start of the auction, the organizers of the auction house noted that the manuscripts of a famous hirut and clergyman are the most valuable exhibits. Among them is his speech at the opening of the school of medicine in Tashkent, essays from the war years, memories after the war. One of the most valuable artifacts is the manuscript On Evil and Suffering, written in exile.
Photographs from the saint’s personal archive, his bronze inkwell and other personal belongings of the surgeon-bishop were sold at the auction. The highest price of St. Luke’s personal belongings was paid for his omophorion.
