Letters of St. Basil the Great

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.