A brother, when he became a monk, distributed all his possessions, keeping only one good estate. A prominent layman desired this estate and asked him several times to sell it or exchange it, but he would not accept anything.
So it happened that the layman was appointed governor of that province and began to press the monk to leave the estate, harassing him constantly and driving his animals through the estate.
The brother, seeing things very difficult and because he did not succeed in persuading the governor with entreaties, finally took refuge with a virtuous and famous elder. He went many times, but the elder drove him away, telling him to return to his cell.
When the brother saw the governor ready to take his estate, he again went to the elder and said to him: "For God's sake, help me, and write to him or send someone to speak to him." And because he persisted annoyingly, the elder wrote a letter to the governor saying the following: "A monk is a monk, so that he has nothing with which they can wrong him. But if he has, let him be wronged, because he is not a monk." And writing the sender and the addressee by heart, he gave the letter to the brother to take to the governor, but the brother did not know its contents.
So he went and gave the letter to the govenor. He accepted it with great honor and after kissing it opened it and read it. And he asked the brother: "Do you know what he wrote?" He tells him: "Leave the estate." And the governor, admiring the virtue of the elder, left the estate.
In this incident we admire the goodness of God and the attribute of virtue, that is, what the elder wrote, without anything insulting or threatening, and how such a letter convinced the ruler to have mercy on the one who begged him.
From the book: Unknown pages of Gerontikos
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