Letter 142: Theodore Studite, Letter 142; Greek heading: Ἡγουμένῃ.

Your venerable reverence is known to us from the account of Hypatius, our spiritual child, and not from beholding you with our own eyes; but now your godliness has become very well known to us indeed from your steadfastness according to God, since you have chosen to lose both your monastery and your charge over the sisters, and even to undergo the imprisonment to which you were condemned, rather than to fall away from your faith in Christ. For the denial of His holy icon [eikon: the sacred image whose veneration the iconoclasts rejected] is in truth a falling away from Christ, the icon which the new Jews [the iconoclasts, equated with those who reject Christ] demand be denied, while those who will not comply they imprison, flog, throttle, oppress, put to the test, banish, bind in irons, devising every kind of cruelty whatsoever. For this reason, O good amma [abbess; spiritual mother], having heard of your fine confession such as this, we have judged it right by the present letter to visit you, addressing to you the things that make for peace. Christ be with you, He whom you have longed for and for whose sake you suffer. Be of good cheer, be strong, be mighty in Christ who strengthens you, not only in the things in which you now are, but also in whatever Christ shall permit to be brought upon you for the testing of your unfeigned faith. Do not say, "Hierarchs, priests, and abbots have run aground, and I am a woman, with a nature that is weak; what shall I do? How shall I endure?" By no means, O mother; each one of us has received power from God, both man and woman, young and old, to fight even unto blood on behalf of the divine law and of our orthodox faith. And the fall of our neighbor will not suffice as a defense for us. How many men and how many women are among those above in their martyrdoms for Christ? And few men and few women, that I name no names, are they who have carried off the crown of the contest. Therefore, made like to them, stand firm yourself also manfully, I beseech you; for we are ambassadors on behalf of Christ, it says, as though God were entreating through us. And do you also in turn give us, in place of words, your supplications, so that we too, the lowly, may arrive somewhere behind our holy fathers who are contending in the struggle.