Letter 403: Theodore Studite, Letter 403; Greek heading: Μοναζούσαισ.

It is a duty, if anything is, for me in my lowliness to encourage you with a word and to anoint you with exhortation - you who are truly, as the Truth himself has said, the sisters and mothers of the Lord - as you endure for Christ both the loss of your spiritual mother, and your separation from one another, and the removal of your holy convent, and indeed the keeping of imprisonment, having already been scourged beforehand for the confession of the truth. But let me say something on this scale, lifting up your fitting praise: in the present time the whole sisterhood of one convent, thirty in number - at a time when rulers and ruled alike have turned aside, having through fear of death thrust away the word of the Lord, and when monks and nuns alike, even if some few remained behind, [have done likewise] - that you should thus be of one soul and bind upon yourselves the contest [athlon, the struggle/prize] on behalf of Christ: this is to be set beside the times of old; it is the likeness of the Holy Forty [the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste], or is figured forth in some others of the blessed prize-winners. How blessed are you, each one surpassing the other in burning zeal, and all together whetting one another for the stadium of confession! A worthy spectacle of an angelic dance, of a band of martyrs beloved by God, for whom also the sufferings are endured. Come then now, daughters of the Jerusalem above, branches of the true vine, disciples without falsehood of the word: let us rejoice in a manner befitting God, let us give thanks in return to Christ who has made us strong to bear up under the things that have already come, and then let us also prepare ourselves for the things to come. What is this? Even if again there be scourges, even if bonds, even if fire, even if the sword, by no means to shrink back, but to be eager to bear all things with Christ; for we shall be strong. Since indeed he has said: "To him who believes all things are possible." Do you see what manner of praises these are? What then, furthermore, of the recompenses to come - the kingdom of heaven, joy unspeakable? Let none, then, fall away to Satan; let none be a lover of her own life, as one of the forty was out of the [forty - here] the thirty. They are the image of self-restraint [enkrateia]; you are the type of the Holy Trinity, divided by ten in a triadic fashion [thirty = ten times three]. Such is our worthless encouragement; but may you give me in return your prayers, O thrice-blessed mothers, as provision for salvation.