Letter 214: Theodore Studite, Letter 214; Greek heading: Θεοφάνει ἡγουμένῳ τοῦ Ἀγροῦ.

Late in the day, yet I have learned that you have been arrested by the Judaizers [the iconoclasts, here charged with rejecting images as the Jews reject them] and the falsely-named Christians, O father most longed for and most renowned. And oh, how were they not ashamed to lift a hand against a man of God, against a holy man, against a frail tabernacle of the body worn out both by your many years of asceticism and by a most grievous illness? But those who have stretched out hands of outrage and persecution against Christ himself, what will they spare, what unholy deed will they not do? Yet thanks be to God for his ineffable gift, that you, who are sick in body unto death, he has strengthened in spirit beyond the many who are in health, to become a herald of the truth, fearlessly refuting a heretic's tongue and remaining wholly unshaken in the confession of Christ. This is the crowning point of your ascetic struggles; this is the coping-stone of your God-taught knowledge. You have gladdened God, your beloved; you have delighted the angels, the overseers of your praiseworthy life; you have crowned your own head with the diadem of confession; you have become, together with the Church of Christ, also for me, your pitiable and least child, a support of salvation. Therefore rejoice and be glad in your hopes of recompense that reach into the age that is never to be unwound, praying that I too, your least son, may come after you. I beg you to greet, most holy one, your fellow-contestant, and my father - I mean the exarch [the leader, here a senior monastic or ecclesiastical official accompanying him].