Message to the abbot of the monastery Tsybukan Feodosius

To the most honorable of the fathers, Theodosius, hegumen of the Tsybukan monastery, with his beloved children - rejoice in the Lord! I thank the Lord and God and our Savior Jesus Christ, who preserves the health of your shrine for the benefit and edification of the brothers of the Lord, whom the Holy Spirit has bound with an indestructible union of love for your shrine. And I greatly rejoiced in spirit, sensing in your writing the fragrance of the humility of your God-loving soul, for by the grace of God you can, in word and deed, show the flock of God’s verbal sheep entrusted to you the unmistakable path to salvation, according to such a gift given to you from God. And in the pasture of the Divine commandments you can feed them, giving them the restful and flowing water of the words of God for drinking and eternal flowing water (see John 4:14) - right and true, according to the power of Scripture, spiritual reasoning. Imitating the hero of true and perfect obedience - Christ the Lord (see Rom. 5:19; Phil. 2:8; Heb. 5:7-9), you desire to give yourself up, according to the word of the Apostle (see 2 Cor. 10:5; Rom. 6:16; Rom. 6:22), into obedience, and in him to complete your life. And you greatly grieve that you have lost such a steady and sure path to salvation. Seeing, dear God, in your blessed soul such a godly intention of yours - a clear sign of the foundation of all virtues, that is, humility, without which no one can be saved - I greatly rejoice in my soul, since with it you will save yourself and those who follow you, with the assistance of the grace of God. Therefore, I admonish you, blessed one, not to grieve too much about this and not to be exhausted in soul, as if you were deprived of obedience, for the Lord is able to transform a good will into a deed; after all, it is not because of contempt that you are deprived of this, but because of God’s love for the brethren, for the sake of their common benefit, which, more than all the virtues, is pleasing to Christ God, who laid down His soul for us (see Matt. 20:28; Mark 10:45; John 10:11; John 10:15). Just try, strengthened by the grace of God, by your true instruction on God’s commandments, to present the souls who have entrusted themselves to you to Christ God as pure and undefiled sacrifices, worthy of the mental altar, through the complete mortification of their will and reasoning. And not only will you not be deprived of the reward of obedience for your good will toward him, but you will also receive a special crown for the true instruction of God’s children on the path of God from Christ God (see 1 Pet. 5:4), as one who laid down his life for his friends (see John 15:13; 1 John 3:16).