Letter 404: Theodore Studite, Letter 404; Greek heading: Κανονικαῖσ.

From what came before, we had already received sufficient proof of your pious disposition toward our lowliness, but now even more so, to the point that we are truly beside ourselves as we look upon your gifts, how many and how great they are; and then too, having been further instructed by the letter-carrier, who has himself taken in with his own eyes how great is the sparing care and the solicitude that abounds in you to show mercy, to take pity, to feed, to give drink, to clothe, and whatever else is needful for life, as you press on to do these things for our meanness and seek out to learn how to perform them. Is it not, then, fitting that I should give thanks to God for these things, having found mothers and spiritual sisters? Is it not, as a debt I owe, proper for me to render up hymns of praise to you, who seek out God with your whole heart? Rejoice, mothers and daughters in the Lord; rejoice, lovers of the labor of the Gospel's commandments; rejoice, lilies of the field of the spirit [the intelligible field], set in your place in the midst of thorns, yet by your manner running far away from the thorn-thicket of heresy [hairesis: heresy, the error of the iconoclasts]; rejoice, you fair yoked pair, holding fast to one another and through one another bound together unto God. How great is your concord according to God, your loving bond, your single monastic mode of life! Rejoice, you lady of the lady, mother of the mother, abbess of the abbess [kathegoumene: superior of a monastery], at once ruling and at the same time being ruled; how fair is your work and your way of conduct, that you may both gather to yourself the reward that comes of subjection and become a security for the one who presides. Rejoice, you who are at once abbess and one subject, the one toward the many, the other toward the one; blessed is your understanding, steering and being steered, and directed toward the harbor of salvation. Brief are these encomia, but from the few the many are heard together. May the Lord render back to you the reward on our behalf, the reward on behalf of the steward [oikonomos: the household manager], the reward on behalf of any other person whatsoever who fares well. Guard yourselves still, I beg you, from the soul-destroying heresy, communion with which is estrangement from Christ. Make your manner of life [politeia] together still more radiant, the golden chain unbroken even for the many, so that, adorned from both, you may arrive at the bridal chamber of the Lord with your lamps shining bright, enjoying the eternal good things.