Roman Martyrology: In Soterion, Greece, Luke the Younger, hermit (955).

SHORT BIOGRAPHY

Born on c.920 on Aegina, Greece. Third of seven children born to Stephen and Euphrosyne, small land-owning farmers; the family was forced to flee to Thessaly ahead of Saracen raids on their home island. In his youth Luke worked the fields and tended sheep to help support his family, but when his father died, the young man followed a call to religious life, gave away all his property to the poor (which put him in conflict with his relatives) and left home to pursue his calling.
Settling as a monk in the area of modern Hungary and Bulgaria, he was mistaken for a runaway slave and imprisoned for a while. Eventually released, he found that his family refused to have anything else to do with him.

He briefly joined a monastery in Athens, Greece, but the superior there received a dream in which Luke’s mother was calling for help, so he sent the young man home. His mother finally accepted Luke’s call to religious life, and he became a hermit on Mount Joannitsa near Corinth, Greece.

He healed so many people by prayer that his hermitage became know as the Soterion (the place of healing; place of safety), and Luke as as Thaumaturgus (Wonder worker).

He died on c.950 near Corinth, Greece of natural causes. Upon his death, his hermitage was turned into a chapel.