Letter 42: Severus allows Philip communion in the oblation but suspends his diaconal ministry until repentance bears fruit.

I previously informed Your Holinesses about the situation in which we are placed when I sent a letter through the holy monastery at Aphthoria. If that letter has reached you, please let me know in a letter of your own. Among other matters: Philip, the devout monk from Isauria whom I ordained deacon, was deceived by greedy thoughts. He listened to deceivers and imagined that he could dig up treasure. I blamed him for this, expelled him from the chapel of the forty holy martyrs, and ordered him to discipline himself with the labors of repentance. If he is now living in the holy monastery of father Romanus of blessed memory, you are right to allow him communion in the oblation, but to exclude him from the ministry of deacons until he shows fruits of repentance for a suitable time. As for the man who holds the prelacy of Jerusalem, no report has reached me personally about his reconciliation. Everyone who knows him already knows how unstable and weak he is, since from the beginning he has lived in confusion and inconsistency and yet has been raised to his present position. I was glad to see the God-loving presbyter father Apaphon. His arrival seemed a great blessing, and I would gladly have paid dearly for it. Instead, through your saintly prayers, Christ our Savior and God gave me that pleasure freely. The fifty darics he spent on the well have been repaid to him from a God-loving loan. Believe me, we do not have a mina; that is the only way our poverty is relieved.

Of the circumstances in which we are placed I notified your holinesses before when I sent the letter through the holy monastery at Aphthoria. If you have received this letter, please let me know this by a missive of your own. And after other things. But Philip, the devout monk from Isauria, who was ordained deacon by me, deceived by avaricious thoughts, in truth yielded to some deceivers and conceived the idea of digging and bringing up treasure. And he incurred blame from me on this account, and was expelled from the chapel of the forty holy martyrs, and was ordered to visit himself with labours of repentance. If therefore he is living in the holy monastery of father Romanus of holy memory, you are acting rightly in allowing him to communicate in the oblation, but excluding him from the deacons' ministry, until he shows fruits of repentance for a certain period of time. As to him who holds the prelacy of the city of the men of Jerusalem, no news has reached us personally as to his reconciliation. But that the man is utterly unstable and weak, seeing that from the very beginning he has lived such a confused and inconstant life, and has thus been raised to the position that he now holds, all who know him are well aware, and I have no need of words on this point. I was glad to see the God-loving presbyter father Apaphon, as I said before, and I thought the man's coming a great blessing, and you may be sure that I would have bought this at a high price; and I have incurred a debt of thanks to Christ our Saviour and God in that I received this pleasure for nothing through your saintly prayers. The sum of gold that was spent by him upon the well, I mean the sum of fifty darics, we paid to him out of a certain God-loving loan. For, believe me, we have not a mina: and this is the only way in which we are relieved in poverty: while in our other pursuits we distress God and do nothing at all that is pleasing to Him.