Letter 88: Theodore Studite, Letter 88; Greek heading: Μόσχῳ λαϊκῷ.

Many are your good deeds, most God-loving master, which you have not only done for us in our lowliness, but which you do even now (in what way not consoling us? in what way not sending to us?), among which the present ones too are very many and most sweetly delightful. And who is the one who repays you but the good God? By the things you do you have shown your love to be unchanging; you have made manifest the lightning-flashes of your purpose darting forth. For from how great a distance have I been carried away, and yet I enjoy your good things, and this after the brothers coming to you also cause you toils. Some of them, as I have heard, were even nursed in sickness in your Abrahamic and blessed hearth, because it is a lodging-place for many monks and a nurturing-house for orphans. May God, the Father of orphans, sustain you unto the ages; may Abraham cherish you in his bosom as one of like zeal, together with the ladies your sisters, with whom you serve Christ. Behold indeed, what is good or what is delightful but for brothers to dwell together in the same place? And in you it has been fulfilled. I enjoyed your good things while passing through my exile, from your blessed suburban estate of Prousa [Prusa, modern Bursa in Bithynia]; behold, even being far off you receive us graciously. May all good things be multiplied to you, both spiritually and bodily; may you be preserved for me unharmed as regards bodily health, and indeed as regards the soul, free from communion with the Christ-fighting heretics [the iconoclasts].