Early Life and Fall
Luke was born at Adrianople, also called Odrin, in Thrace. The account of his life names his parents as Athanasios and Domnitsa and relates that his father died while he was young, leaving the family poor. A merchant took the boy and brought him to Constantinople.
There, the tradition relates, a quarrel led Luke to declare himself a Muslim in order to escape punishment, and he was adopted by a wealthy Muslim and circumcised. He later escaped and was filled with remorse for having denied Christ, resolving to return to the Orthodox faith.
Conversion and Asceticism
Luke made his way to Mount Athos, where the monks formally received him back into the Orthodox Church. He took up the ascetic life at the Skete of Saint Anne, and under spiritual direction he prepared himself for the possibility of martyrdom, a path several New Martyrs of the Ottoman period followed after a public denial of Christ.
Martyrdom and Veneration
Accompanied by his spiritual father, Luke traveled to Mytilene on the island of Lesbos. The account relates that he confessed and received Holy Communion, then put on secular dress while keeping the monastic habit beneath it, and presented himself before the Muslim authorities to confess Christ.
The authorities tried to persuade him to return to Islam, but he answered firmly that he worshipped and believed in Christ. He was imprisoned and then hanged on March 23, 1802, at the age of nineteen. The tradition relates that his body was cast into the sea and afterward recovered. He is commemorated as a New Martyr on March 23.
