Letter 472: Theodore Studite, Letter 472; Greek heading: Εὐφροσύνῃ ἡγουμένῃ.

Having heard now also that your Honor has been consoled regarding the suffering over your blessed mother, I gave thanks to the Lord, who has shown you to be both a genuine lover of your mother and an excellent lover of God: the one through your loving grief, the other through your well-measured acceptance of consolation; and from these it has been demonstrated that you loved both your mother and God. But come now, lady, rejoicing and trembling, walk your road: rejoicing because you were counted worthy to be called the daughter of such a mother, but trembling because the place of careful supervision [the office of governing the monastery] is set before you, in which the struggle is no ordinary one, nor is the reward to be despised, but rather, for those who have understanding, the height is exceedingly great on both sides. You therefore, as one who is prudent, as one who is intelligent, as one led from your mother in the spirit, pass through a most excellent and well-ordered life, setting yourself forth as a model of good works to the sisters. Let not the eye of your heart slumber from the guarding of God's commandments; do not stop up the ear of your soul from hearing the voice of teaching, being taught and teaching, being enlightened and enlightening, being led by the hand and leading by the hand, being brought to God and bringing others. May your name be heard in good citizenship [the monastic way of life], so that God may be glorified in you and in your monastery, you not being made common after the lukewarmness of the many, but being made exact according to the ordinance of the Spirit, in one mind, in one will, in one heart and soul, in imitation of the saints recorded in the Acts of the Apostles; for, it says, of all there was one soul and heart, and no one said that any of his possessions was his own [Acts 4:32]. This is the good life, this is the portion of the Lord, this is the true cenobium [communal monastery]; but where these things are not, the opposite is clearly the case. How great is your joy and glory, most honored one, but indeed also that of your children, to conduct your lives after the manner of the apostles, to be led as the fathers handed down, in a manner befitting nobility; for this is nobility: to live in a way pleasing to God, to conduct your lives in a manner befitting holiness, that you be called a chosen race, an honored seed -- of whom? Of that Thecla the protomartyr [the first woman martyr, companion of the apostle Paul], of Febronia, of Eupraxia, of the sacred and blessed register that is according to them. For if you have left the world behind, if you have renounced parents, if you have chosen virginity, if you have been wedded to Christ, if you have loved the kingdom of the heavens, why would you not have all your zeal and care directed toward this, rejoicing that you have been counted worthy of such a God-given gift, of an unsurpassable dignity -- I do not mean according to human things (for these are a shadow and dreams, dissolved together with the present age), but also according to spiritual things, if indeed virginity and possessionlessness are the chief of the greatest gifts? And if those who live according to the world are insatiable to partake of vain and perishing things, what and how much ought we to be insatiable in goods that cannot be unraveled and are unspeakable? Yes, I beseech you, yes, I implore you, gain possession of the heavenly things, become daughters of God, queens honored in heaven, brides of Christ, fellow-heirs of Christ, light in the world, a holy utterance, a citizenship worthy of praise -- both you, the lady superior and ruler in Christ, and you, the daughters blessed with good children of the Jerusalem above, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory unto the ages. Amen.