Letter 155: Theodore Studite, Letter 155; Greek heading: Τῷ αὐτῷ.

What joy is mine, lowly as I am, in receiving your word, my child, and in holding in my heart the one whom long ago I had lost! But thanks be to God who has joined us together; would that I had also seen your face, would that I might have heard your living voice as well. So greatly do I long for you, and so I rejoice that you have been called back. Do not, then, grow slack, my son, but go forward in good cheer along the journey of the soul that is in the Lord, casting far away the stumbling-blocks and the occasions of falling that have been laid in your path by the one who hinders salvation, and making for yourself a road of entry to God; for it stands open to you already, now that the bars of sin have been lifted. Anoint your spiritual feet [literally, the feet of the mind], and, moving little by little, I am confident that you will both quicken your step and arrive at entering into the things you long for. Already the contest [the martyr's struggle] lies set before you; what wonder, then, if you should attain even to the roll of the martyrs? Yes, my child Litoios, stand fast, be saved, win glory. And it is altogether well that it has been arranged by [divine] dispensation [oikonomia: God's providential ordering] for you to be in the place of straitened circumstance together with the steward [oikonomos]; you have been yoked together with brother Proterios, a work of humility, and humility is the medicine that overthrows the adversary. Peace be to you, and strength from God. Pray for me. Those who are with me greet you.