Archbishop Luke is reputed for the fact that during the raucous post-revolutionary and war years, despite the repressions, he managed to combine church service and preaching with his active work as a surgeon.

The Tambov period of St. Luke’s life is one of the most impressive parts of his church and public service. Tambov has preserved the house in Archbishop Luke Street (former Komsomolskaya Street) where archbishop, professor, doctor of medicine and consulting physician of Tambov evacuation hospitals had been living from 1944 to 1946. Today the building has been transformed into Folk museum-monastic cell of Archbishop Luke.  

The museum exposition includes objects donated by Tambovians, the people who knew Luke personally: icons, photographs, various documents. Every exhibit talks about the outstanding man’s life story. The most revered place for the Orthodox Christian visitors to the museum is the archbishop’s small study-cell. Here you will see his icons, the memorial icon lamp, as well as the lithographs of the Mother of God and Savior – the gifts to his children in spirit.   

Some of the museum exhibits are equipped with an audioguide, for example, if you are standing in front of the archbishop’s photograph, the directional sound system will play the sermon that Luke gave in Crimea in 1956.

Besides, the museum displays the electronic itinerary map – “Archbishop Luke: the memorable places in Tambov”. This map will take you on a virtual tour around Tambov of the 1940s for you to see it the way Luke himself knew it, to get to know the memorial sights associated with the years of the saint surgeon’s service.