99. 1464 г. Послание новгородского архиепископа Ионы к митрополиту Феодосию, с изъявлением соболезнования о его недугах, побуждающих его оставить кафедру, с повторением своего обязательства не признавать киевского лжемитрополита Григория и с выражением согласия на избрание в митрополиты епископа Фил

From the collection of the Novgorod-Sofia Library (now the St. Petersburg Theological Academy) No. 1454, l. 431 vol.–433. Message to Metropolitan Theodosius from Archbishop Jonah of Veliky Novgorod and Pskov To our all-holy lord and father Theodosius, Metropolitan of All Rus', the son and colleague of the Most Reverend, the humble Archbishop of Veliky Novograd and Pskov, Vladyka Jonah beats his forehead. Whenever we hear about the health of your venerable shrine, our lord and father, then we rejoice a lot and are thus joyful, thanking God for your health; Whenever we hear something trembling about you, our father and lord 2877 (as if we have received a good understanding from your very writing to us), then we receive great sadness. But we also thank God, who gives health and sickness, since this is common to all of us, and all the same way we overcome this worldly and beautiful sea of ​​need and illness. It’s not just that there is a change from summer to winter, lower from winter to summer, since the honest one knows more about the sacred, but in the middle it has, as if there is some kind of intercessor between summer and winter, autumn: we mean about our bodies, from health to illness, and other things that are given due to our life. And what is our master and father writing to us 2878, remembering, since we were in Moscow in the house of the Most Pure Mother of God, with the great wonderworker Peter the Sepulcher, and with our master, and with your son, with the Grand Duke Ivan Vasilyevich, and with you, our father and master, and now to us our master, with your writing, you remember the then union with your brethren, with archbishop and bishops, about the Church of God that was: otherwise, let the honest news of this shrine, as then, as now, about that church union with our brethren, we remain motionless, as we subscribed. And if you write to us, our lord and father, O Gregory, Isidore’s disciple and zealot, you cannot mix with him, as then, as now, with him: otherwise, lord and father, it is not customary for the house of the Wisdom of God of St. Sophia to receive a wolf instead of a shepherd, nor bitter instead of sweet, to partake of communion below the stone, the bread set before us, but to adhere to the true shepherd, whose doors are in He who comes as a sheep fence and lays down his life for the sheep, and not from Rome who transgresses. Yes, you write to us, our lord, that having spoken with your son, and with our lord, with the Grand Duke, and with his mother and the Grand Duchess, and with our brother, the archbishop and bishops, and at the council, you blessed our lord Bishop Philip in his place for the metropolis, for the sake of his serious illness: and we thank you for that, our father, that about the church Worry for God. We, by the grace of Christ, with our brethren, in one council, remain motionless, and you have blessed it in your place, for the sake of it we must be in obedience, but to the rule of the Holy Fathers. Having heard about your illness, like above, we grieve a lot; But even if it were powerful for you, your father, to visit you in your illnesses and be blessed by you, we too have suffered from old age and illness. And also our master in his letter you write, you send peace and kisses to us: and we beat with our foreheads and pray to God, you have served him from your youth, so may he do something useful for you both in this century and in the future. And what our master is writing to us about the ordination of our lord Philip, and we are one in this matter with our brethren, with the archbishop and bishops, and I agree with that divine and greatest church work. You might be interested in: