Andronik Lukash

Venerable Andronik Lukash (born Alexei Andreevich Lukash, 1889 to 1974) was a schema-⁠archimandrite of the Georgian Orthodox Church, a former monk of the Glinsk Hermitage, an elder, who died at Tbilisi. He was glorified as a venerable saint on 21 August 2010 by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, together with other monks of Glinsk. He is commemorated on 9 September (Old Style). The source does not say that the Georgian Church has canonized him.

Life

He was born into a peasant family. After the parish school, at seventeen he entered the Glinsk Hermitage as a novice, under the guidance of Hieromonk Anthony (Vetro). In 1913, as a novice, he was moved to the Protection of the Mother of God monastery at Osh. Two years later, in the First World War, he was mobilized into the Russian army, taken prisoner by the Austrians and spent three and a half years there. In 1918 he returned to Glinsk. In 1921 he took monastic vows, with the name Andronik. The next year the Soviet government closed the monastery and he moved to Rylsk, where he became cell attendant to Bishop Paulinus (Kroshechkin) and was ordained hierodeacon. The following year he was arrested, accused of counter-⁠revolutionary activity and sentenced to five years in a camp at Kolyma, where he worked as an orderly in the camp hospital. In 1928 he returned to Rylsk and was ordained hieromonk by Bishop Paulinus.

In 1929, gravely ill, he resolved to receive the great schema, but he recovered and continued his pastoral ministry until 1939, when he was arrested again and sent again to Kolyma. The camp commander did not send him to work with the other prisoners but entrusted him with the running of his own house, which probably saved his life. In 1948 he returned to the Glinsk Hermitage, restored years before, where he was dean. In 1955 he received the rank of schema-⁠hegumen. The faithful considered him a holy elder: he was credited with the gift of foretelling the future, of showing people the surest way of salvation and of healing by prayer. With pilgrims he was especially gentle and kind.

Tbilisi and glorification

In 1961 the Soviet government closed the Glinsk skete a second time. Schema-⁠hegumen Andronik, with a group of monks, went to Tbilisi and settled beside the church of Saint Alexander Nevsky, whose rector was another former Glinsk monk, Metropolitan Zenon (Mazhuga) of Stepanavan. He continued to receive the faithful and to keep up a vast correspondence. In 1963 he received the rank of schema-⁠archimandrite. He reposed in 1974 and was buried at Tbilisi. On 21 August 2010 Schema-⁠archimandrite Andronik, together with Metropolitan Zenon and Schema-⁠archimandrite Seraphim (Romantsov), was canonized by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church at the Glinsk Hermitage, in a service led by Metropolitan Volodymyr (Sabodan) of Kyiv.