Letter 62: Theodore Studite, Letter 62; Greek heading: Εἰρήνῃ καὶ Εὐφροσύνῃ μοναζούσαισ.

As the brother and assistant-steward [paroikonomos, the deputy to the monastery's steward] is setting out, we thought it timely to scratch out for you a brief line, to the sisters in the Lord. And so we ask, how does your holy pair fare, all you sisters? See how, as though attached to you not as to other sisters, we ask after you and converse with you according to God? And rightly so; for where there is faith, there too is longing, drawing and being drawn in return through the Holy Spirit, and where these are, there too is care for salvation. For this reason we, the unworthy, write, beseeching for Christ's sake that you hold fast to the good confession which we all confessed in the presence of God and the elect angels, to live in the Lord in the laying aside of the carnal mind, which is the breaking of the bonds of attachment to this present age and the coming to be with God, whom we have loved, to whom we were wedded as a bride, and with whom we shall also be together forever. Him, sisters, we breathe always; for him we are in love, the true love, the unapproachable longing, the only Master of heaven and earth, whose love toward men is so great that he himself took on the form of a slave [an allusion to Philippians 2:7] in order to recall us from corruption and to make us gods [theosis, deification]. How very great is the promise; how extraordinary the meeting that awaits in the heavens. There the righteous will shine forth like the sun; there those who have clothed themselves in virginity will be joined to the incorruptible Bridegroom; there those who have practiced submission and obedience will, as rulers of Christ, dance in eternal chorus, while those who are opposed will plainly suffer the opposite. Therefore, cross-bearing sisters, let us not, without our own awareness, store up for ourselves, in place of life and boundless joy, punishment and eternal fire, through negligence and corruption of the flesh, through disobedience and a passion-ridden way of life. Virtue is from God and is divine; vice is from Satan and is Satan. Those who choose the first are of God and are gods; those who choose the second are demons and of Satan. Thus do we now also greet you. And let me not be reckoned burdensome to you, as one speaking onerous things, but rather sweet, as one exhorting on God's behalf. And this word is not directed to the superiors [literally "the ladies"; the abbesses Irene and Euphrosyne addressed in the letter] (for they are teachers even of others), but to the full body of the sisterhood, which may it be preserved yet more and more in good health, flourishing unto a boast both for itself and for me as its encourager on the day of Christ; to whom be the glory unto the ages. Amen.