Letter CCLXXXV.1508    Placed in the episcopate.

Without Address.

The hearer of this letter is one on whom rests the care of our Church and the management of its property—our beloved son.

Deign to grant him freedom of speech on those points that are referred to your holiness, and attention to the expression of his own views; so shall our Church at length recover herself, and henceforth be released from this many-headed Hydra.

Our property is our poverty; so much so that we are ever in search of one to relieve us of it; for the expenses of the Church property amount to more than any profit that she derives from it.

ΑΝΕΠΙΓΡΑΦΟΣ ΕΠΙ Τῌ ΤΗΣ ΕΚΚΛΗΣΙΑΣ ΠΡΟΣΤΑΣΙᾼ

[1] Ὁ τῆς Ἐκκλησίας φροντίζων καὶ διὰ χειρὸς ἔχων τῶν κτήσεων τὴν ἐπιμέλειαν αὐτός ἐστιν ὁ τὴν ἐπιστολὴν ἐπιδιδούς σοι ταύτην ὁ ἀγαπητὸς υἱὸς ὁ δεῖνα. Τούτῳ καταξίωσον περὶ ὧν ἀναφέρει τῇ κοσμιότητί σου δοῦναι καὶ λόγου παρρησίαν καὶ περὶ ὧν διαβεβαιοῦται προσσχεῖν, ἵνα ἀπὸ γοῦν τοῦ νῦν δυνηθῇ ἡ Ἐκκλησία ἑαυτὴν ἀναλαβεῖν καὶ τῆς πολυκεφάλου ταύτης ὕδρας ἀπαλλαγῆναι. Τοιαύτη γὰρ ἡ κτῆσις τῶν πτωχῶν ὥστε ἀεὶ ἡμᾶς ζητῆσαι τὸν ὑποδεχόμενον αὐτὴν διὰ τὸ προσαναλίσκειν μᾶλλον τὴν Ἐκκλησίαν ἤ τινα καρπὸν ἔχειν ἀπὸ τῶν κτημάτων.