Letter to a bishop asking for prayers for release from service TM 36099unbekanntVI

† I have just received the honoured letter of your fatherly and holy lordship and of your honourable and genuine brotherly God-belovedness, and I was filled with joy on learning from it of your well-being in the Lord and the health of all the brothers [...] our concern. I am expecting every day the most holy Abba Petros the bishop [...] those from the city of the Oxyrhynchites, and when he comes with them, if I have a measure of life, [...] from [...] to him [...]. Through Komas and Pachis I sent [...] to him, so that they may be sent to you from those there [...]. So [...] receive them until I am deemed worthy to venerate your most holy feet. But I beg you to pray for my humble self, that the Lord God may prosper my ways and bring the common master to release me with love, and not [...] the rest [...] to hinder them; for he seeks this one thing from me, and if I have a measure of life I cannot fail to leave, but I want to do it with love, so that after so many years that I have served him I may not grieve him. But I have hope in God and in your prayers that God will persuade him and he will release me on good terms. I venerate many times in the Lord and greet sincerely and happily the holiness of my master, and you, my most God-beloved and genuine brother Phoibammon [...]. My most holy brother the synkellos and everyone do the same. On my behalf [...] let him deign to greet the most God-fearing Abba Marinos and the other priests by name, and the most God-beloved deacons, and brother Kiamoul and all the brothers by name. May our Lord and master deem me worthy soon to embrace you all. The most God-beloved brother Menas with me venerates your footsteps [...] the brothers, so that [...] gift from my most God-beloved brother [...] of the house of the mother [...] soon [...] white [...] I will bring it when I come, if I live. †