Letter 251: Theodore Studite, Letter 251; Greek heading: Θεοφυλάκτῳ πρεσβυτέρῳ.

From what Your Reverence has written, you have made plain your own virtue, both through the humility of speech in the heading and through the power conveyed in the letter; for indeed the fact that you stood beside the martyrs, sharing their zeal and contending alongside them, and that you laid the holy Thaddaeus to rest with your own hands, holds the very greatest proof of your piety, O sacred man. But I grieve in you on account of the written deed of impiety [the signed renunciation extracted by the iconoclasts]. Yet do not be distressed: already it is being smoothed away and is torn apart by your groaning. Bear, therefore, the pain and the season of the priestly office that has been barred to you, until Christ should shine forth the springtime of orthodoxy, in which you will boast in the things you now do for Christ's sake, together also with the recovery of your rank, that is clear.