Letter 306: Theodore Studite, Letter 306; Greek heading: Οἰκονόμῳ.

I have heard concerning your Reverence how nobly you have contended on behalf of Christ, having been subjected to scourgings and kept under guard, and I gave thanks once again to Christ the Master, who has called you to confession of himself, not only because you are one of the holy habit [the monastic schema], but also because, as one numbered among the subordinate brethren, you have done so; and I would add, because you are also one of my own monastery. For your being from Symbola [a locality near Constantinople], where my blessed father both submitted himself to the holy Theoktistos and, having practiced asceticism, shone forth in virtue, makes it possible for me, lowly as I am, to reckon your glory and your martyrdom as my own. Well done, then, O noble steward [oikonomos], soldier of Christ, you who have outstripped many abbots, or rather have put them to shame, seeing that you, holding the rank of a sheep, have shown yourself uncaptured by the hunt of the heretics, while those who seem to be shepherds, made wolfish by the spiritual beast [i.e. the devil], lie before all as a pitiable spectacle, having through the heresy of those here, and through sparing of the flesh, betrayed Christ our God, the only truth, by their fall, whether through communion or even through subscription to those who hold with the heretics. Rejoice therefore, shepherd truly in your deeds; rejoice, witness [martyr] of the Lord. Play the man more perfectly in what lies ahead. You have been scourged together with Christ, you are imprisoned as he was; come, receive also blows on the face, be pierced with nails, be run through with a lance, be lifted up in the suffering of the cross. Thus far the word calls us, and the debt would demand it: if we die, we shall also live together with Christ; if we endure, we shall also reign together with him. Such are the promises of the one who does not lie. But do you, O my noble brother and longed-for father, do not forget to remember me always, asking that I may obtain, together with you, the God who has called us.