Letter 144: Theodore Studite, Letter 144; Greek heading: Σεργίῳ ὑπάτῳ καὶ ἐξαδέλφῳ.

What you have written to me, my truest and most longed-for friend, I have understood, and I have accepted your good resolve, that you take courage to write in these days and console me with words out of your great toil and out of your compassion toward us, the lowly. But I, the sinner, leaving aside my own affairs (for by the grace of Christ they are not grievous, even if they seem so, on account of the hope held out for them), turn my attention to what has befallen you. How is it that your misfortunes come thus one upon another—from without, from within your house, and from your very children, from whom above all there ought to have been both the keeping of the household and the increase of the house, the support and the staff [the prop of one's old age], and whatever else is dear to fathers? Alas for my wretchedness, into what straits your life has fallen! Believe me, my good cousin, your circumstances touch my soul as though our father the blessed one [Theodore's own father, who had taken monastic vows] were feeling them; for he, if anyone, used to grieve over your misfortunes. Do not, then, lose heart; rather bear it with thanksgiving, endure it; for the good God knows how to dispense [oikonomia: God's ordering of affairs for our benefit] for us what is profitable even through adverse and afflicting things—and, beyond everything else, the work is to flee communion with the heresy [hairesis] that wars against Christ [the iconoclasts], partaking of which blackens the soul and destroys it. As much, then, as you are able, take care for yourself, since all the other things, even if we be stripped of them, are nothing great (for even against our will we shall all leave behind all things, passing over naked to the Judge as we were born); but to be deprived of the faith is the greatest and the only one of the dangers; for with this faith we shall go forth, and may it alone stand by us, together with our works, on the day of judgment, eternally. Blessed is the abbess, if she should complete her course. And once again greet our people, for whom I also, as a sinner, ever pray for their salvation.