Letter 368: Theodore Studite, Letter 368; Greek heading: Συμεὼν τέκνῳ.

Since I have read your letter and learned where you are settled, and how, and with how many and what sort of brothers of yours, beloved child, I, the lowly one, have been greatly refreshed, and I have given my blessing to you both, and before the others to you, who lead well and who from a good disposition have taken the others under your charge. Therefore may you be kept for me in unity, living together in peace and concord, and passing through the time of persecution in a saving and blessed manner; for indeed the Lord has called you blessed in the Gospels. The commendation is great, the hope unsurpassable; for it is the kingdom of heaven. Stand firm therefore, I beseech you, my brothers, stand unconquered against both the visible enemies and the invisible, preparing yourselves in case you should even be arrested, and so that you may win the prize of the contest [athlophorein, the martyr's victory] by the power of God, just as also many of your brothers have done. But for the time being, so long as the Lord dispenses [oikonomei; from oikonomia, the divine dispensation or providential arrangement] that you remain unarrested, may you go on living well, on the one hand holding to one another lovingly and without reserve, and on the other submitting to one another in the fear of Christ, that is to say, with you, brother, going before as head; for everything that is headless and without a ruler is disordered and seditious, from which may we be delivered. Pray for the peace of the Church of God, for all your scattered brothers, and especially for those at Stoudios [the Stoudios monastery in Constantinople] who are being oppressed by the godless Leontios and are sorely worn down, and yet who are holding out most mightily; and then also for us sinners, that we may be saved in the Lord. Your brother Nicholas sends you very many greetings.