The Orthodox Church commemorates today the Apostle and Evangelist Luke, author of the Holy Gospel of Luke but also of the Acts of the Apostles, i.e. of two of the 27 canonical books of the New Testament.
He was coming from the great spiritual epicentre of antiquity and Christianity, Antioch of Syria. Luke studied Greek and became an excellent physician.
Moreover, he met the Apostle Paul in Greece, where he was working as a physician. He followed him faithfully on his trips and offered him the necessary medical care. In fact, according to the Apostle Paul, only Luke accompanied him and supported him even during his imprisonment.
After the martyrdom of his teacher (64 AD), he visited various places, especially in central Greece, where he preached and contributed greatly to the spread of the Orthodox Christian faith.
He fell asleep in the Lord when he was 80 years old and was buried in the region of Boeotia. In the 4th century, his holy relics were translated to Constantinople in the Church of the Holy Apostles.
The Evangelist Luke is considered to be the first hagiographer of the Orthodox Church. Legend has it that he had painted three icons of the Theotokos with wax and mastic (resin obtained from the mastic tree). He had shown them to the Theotokos herself and she blessed them. It is said that seventy icons of the Theotokos were painted by the Evangelist Luke, which are now kept in various monasteries and churches in Cyprus and in other Orthodox countries.
Source: Church of Cyprus