Letter 114: Theodore Studite, Letter 114; Greek heading: Ἀθανασίῳ τέκνῳ.

I write to you now, my child, as I would not have wished, and you know the manner of it. Alas for me, the wretched one; woe is me, the miserable one, at what has befallen our two brothers. To me, even though both were beloved (for they were true children), nevertheless he who was your own was the more cherished. Why? Because he was a man of God, full of faith and truth, a son of obedience, a child of light, a man of longings, an unfeigned subordinate, a tamer of the passions, and indeed a zealot, and indeed an eager traveler of the things that are according to the commandment, loving exceedingly his father in the spirit and loved equally in return, detached from the flesh and joined to God, useful to all and chosen by all. Do you think I am flattering the man? Even more does the truth contain. The grief over him has laid hold of me mightily; it has shaken my mind, it has crushed my heart; I have wept bitterly, I have been overwhelmed with lamentation as I have never known before, not on account of their falling asleep [death], but because it was in such a place, fearing that my order was the cause (for indeed he obeyed, rejoicing to walk into fire out of faith and to suffer no harm), and still more because I did not in any way intend to send them out in the winter. But I yielded, the steward [oikonomos, the monastery's administrator] having already prepared their journey. Such are the things that have happened. Yet I did not remain, my child, in mourning, but having lifted up my reasoning and reckoned that there is only one death that is evil, the death of sin, and that it is not the place but the manner of death that is to be sought, I gave thanks to the Lord in what had occurred, surrendering the whole matter to the unseen judgments of His dispensation [oikonomia, the divine ordering of all things]; He who before the foundation of the world profitably apportioned both the time and the place of the end to each one. In these things take heart yourself also, my ever-longed-for brother, ranking him along with Zosimas and the wonderful Gaianos, brothers equal in spirit as also in body; of whose portion may I, the unworthy one, be. Pray for me unceasingly that I may be saved, beloved child.