Letter 268: Theodore Studite, Letter 268; Greek heading: Ἰωάννῃ ἡγουμένῳ.

The present little letter is occasioned by two letters of your Holiness, since I did not happen upon a letter-carrier, or, to speak more truly, because we received only a phantom-like meeting, which the one who brought your letter reported. Thanks, then, be to God that you continue in good health, most honored father, bearing the reproach of Christ, for whose sake and on whose account come the exile and the hardship, the deprivation of one's household and the estrangement from one's own possessions. You receive distressing reports of those who commit lawless acts against the property of the monastery; and I know that the account stings (how could it not?), seeing that these are the labor of your hands, the sweat of your contests, your parents' substance, the contributions and collections of many others, since you also held office in imperial affairs, receiving rations and provision-allowances in no small measure, inasmuch as you were both born of noble stock and supported by your kinsmen, and you built up a monastery of much property [Theodore is reminding the abbot John how richly the monastery he founded was endowed]. But what must one suffer, when the times have brought matters to such a pass? Take courage, then, O most honored one, for you will recover these things also a little later, when the good God, by the sufficiency of the trial, shall test, as in fire, the proof of our trust in Him; and Christ will store up for you a possession yet better and abiding in the heavens, in return for all that you have now left behind for His sake, having carried off eternal glory both in the monastic order and in the whole Church of God. Therefore, I beg you, do not let the memory and the report of these grievous things tear your heart to pieces; for it is written, I remind you, that we have not yet resisted unto blood in our struggle against sin. And God is able, together with the trial, to make also the issue of hope, and He is faithful to reckon to us, as a testimony, both the things that have already come upon us and the things that are now coming. Wherefore we still have need of endurance, O father, that we may receive the promises pledged to us by God. I have received in full, and most gladly welcomed, your assent in the matter wherein I sought to persuade you, namely your confession and agreement for the sake of the truth; and may it be reckoned to you, I would say, as grace, and as pardon for the debts owed in common, since this too the chief of the hierarchy [the apostle Peter] was not ashamed to have confessed both to God and to certain persons. But come, let me bring my discourse to bear upon our own picked men. Where, pray, are the followers of the abbot Joseph [Joseph, abbot and oikonomos, who under the pretext of oikonomia (dispensation, the principle of pastoral accommodation) had reinstated the priest who performed the emperor's adulterous marriage], who even now, under the guise of dispensation, have acted impiously and broken away, not only from us lowly ones, but indeed also from the head? And the one whom at first they blessed to his face, they showed themselves to be joined to him not in spirit, but after the manner of man; for, having received and entered into communion with the adversary and fighter against Christ, they thrust away, together with Christ, our true patriarch as well. May the Lord behold and visit His Church speedily, ravaged as it is by a wild boar, evidently being made merciful through your prayers and those of all the saints. Do not forget to remember me, the sinner, O you who are longed for, that I may be delivered from every evil work, following behind you, the confessors of Christ.