Letter 14: Theodore Studite, Letter 14; Greek heading: Ἰγνατίῳ ἡγουμένῳ.

Before everything else I pay the debt of greeting to your fatherly holiness (would that I could do so in person), and then in this way I will declare the reason for my letter. A rational sheep of ours, brother So-and-so, beguiled by the many-wiled cunning of the soul-destroying wolf, has been thrust out from our humble flock and, as we have learned, has been received into the monastery of your holiness. Now if, upon receiving him at once, you admonished him toward returning, pointing out to him the deception and the ruin which he has suffered, and then, having reformed him, sent him back to our poor self, as we have been enjoined by the holy fathers, there would be nothing unfitting in it, but rather what is proper for you. But since so much time has galloped by and there is no return anywhere, I wish to ask: in what manner does your love-of-God [theophilia, an honorific address] retain my disciple? As one who is ignorant of the matter? But you ought, once informed, to send away one whom you did not tonsure. As one who knows? Then it is greatly harmful; for you understand what the divine and great Basil [Basil of Caesarea, author of the monastic Rules] legislates, namely that the one who leaps away from communion with his own brothers is to be unacceptable in all the brotherhoods. For how could the communities even hold together, if this above all be not observed as the chief principle? For if among the schoolmasters of this world it is not permissible to receive into their lessons a child who has previously been handed over to another school, and those who do so the whole assembly subjects to penalties and damage, how much more so in our case, most holy father, who hold the churches of God and lead souls in imitation of our first teacher and shepherd Jesus Christ? I know, then, that you are filled with wisdom and knowledge, but I beg you to recognize the irregular thing being done, and most of all you yourself who excel the others and carry weight in your sacred brotherhood. Or do you not know, most holy one, that it is harmful even to your own flock to join to it a sheep belonging to another master? Since, therefore, the evil is by common confession so great, we entreat you, when you receive our poor letter, to hand him over to our brothers who have been sent for this very purpose, that they may lead him back to his own flock together with the property of the church which he has appropriated. But if the brother makes use of disobedience, you will be willing to drive him off at once from your sacred flock. And if - which we do not suppose - after this knowledge you wish to retain him, let him know that he has been bound by us not without reason, but indeed with full deliberation, or rather by the Holy Trinity and by all sacerdotal legislation, so as to be excluded from communion in the divine gifts, since he is also barred from the outer foods [i.e. from common meals], until, turning back, he be settled again in his own fold. And just as it is not lawful for anyone at all to loose one whom your holiness binds as her own disciple (for this is a work of lawlessness and, by common vote of the whole church, a condemnation to suffer the like in turn), so likewise by no means does your holiness lay herself upon our authority, which the Lord has given us, though unworthy, not for the destruction but for the building up of souls; for the judgment is dreadful. For this reason we beseech you: by all means hand over our spiritual child to the brothers, praying for us sinners without ceasing.