Letter 176: Theodore Studite, Letter 176; Greek heading: Ἐπιφανίῳ ἡγουμένῳ Εὐκαιρίασ.

Because I was informed that Your Holiness had been removed to the confinement for the Lord's sake in which you are now held, it was not possible for me until now to write to you, much as I longed to do so; but since I have learned for certain that you are gaining the victory both in place and in manner, write to me speedily and with longing. By that letter I both love you, sacred head, and embrace you and rejoice and rejoice together with you; for how are our circumstances not a matter of joy, seeing that, for the sake of the joy which the Theotokos [the God-bearer, the Virgin Mary] brought forth, each one of us is in exiles and prisons? For I, the unworthy one, dare to number myself among the confessors of Christ, for whom and on whose account we have been counted worthy to suffer ill. Our circumstances are matters of gladness, O man, of longings, of cheerfulness, of exultation. Do you not hear Paul saying, "Now I rejoice in my sufferings on your behalf, and I fill up in my flesh what is lacking of the afflictions of Christ on behalf of His body, which is the Church"? On her behalf are these present sufferings too: the affliction, the constraint, the persecution, the flogging, whatever else there may be, as a demonstration of destruction to those who Judaize [here, the iconoclasts, likened to the Jews who rejected Christ], but as a recompense of salvation to those who, together with you, endure the marks of Christ. But so much for these matters. But how, and of what sort, is the prison and the prison-commander? Are there perhaps some who are pious, even if in secret like Nicodemus [the Pharisee who came to Jesus by night, John 3], among the soldier-monks and the common folk, or have all turned aside and become worthless? And how do the things of contemplation stand with you? Since, being pure, you receive pure impressions toward God, is Christ being bent by entreaty toward rebuking the heretical surge of waves, or does He still postpone the rebuke in order to test the longing toward Him of some, and, of others, to empty out their whole wickedness so as also to punish them justly? Teach me of each thing, and may you support me by your prayers above all, that I may remain unshaken under the assaults of the passions from within and of the temptations from without, I who am your own, sinful though I be, yet nonetheless your lover and one who praises you.