Letter 335: Theodore Studite, Letter 335; Greek heading: Ἄνθῳ τέκνῳ.

Both when I write to you, my child, and when I do not write, I keep you unforgotten in my humble soul, not only because of the care I have taken for your soul from your boyhood, since your thoughts are not childish and infantile but mature and manly, you not having been entangled in unrestrained impulses and base pursuits, but also because of your being together with my own only brother, who is also a father to you. For it is a proof of no ordinary virtue in you that you were chosen out of all to share in his hardships, that is, to be of service to him. Hold fast to your ministry [diakonia, service/office], doing and saying all things as in the eyes of the Lord, in whom your reward is great, and your testing is golden, and your faith unalloyed, and my love, the love of a humble man, toward you is more genuine in Christ, and my acceptance of you in truth more precious. These things are brief, but of sufficient force. Pray, beloved child, fervently for me, your sinful father.