It was a quiet May night in 1923. In distant Tashkent, all the inhabitants are resting. Traffic in the streets is nonexistent. Only at the G.P.U. offices are there those who keep watch. The chekists work night and day, studying the information, preparing indictments, planning arrests. The revolution must be protected with nails and teeth from the ‘enemies of the people.’ But they are not the only ones awake.

In the house of the chief physician, the exiled bishop Andreas arrives with utmost secrecy. The churches of Tashkent have fallen into the hands of the schismatics, and Bishop Andreas must perform the rite of ordination. Everything will be done secretly. The bedroom of the chief physician transforms into a catacomb. The ordination rite begins. The chief physician's little children are asleep. The eldest son recounts: 'One night I was in my bed. My father came for the ordination and Sophia Sergeyevna. They thought I was sleeping. Sophia begged him not to be ordained alone, for our sake, for his children. But my father was unyielding.'

The renowned chief physician surgeon, already a Priest, Fr. Valentin, takes the great step. From Valentin, he becomes Luke. From the lips of the exiled bishop, he listens carefully to the prayers of ordination that prove to be prophetic. 'Do not therefore prefer anything to God... for indeed you have hunger, and thirst, and to be naked, to be abused and mocked, to be reproached and persecuted, and to be surrounded by many other sorrowful things by which the life according to God is characterized...' The chief physician-priest answers firmly, with determination: 'Yes, with God working together, honorable father.'