Letter 264: Theodore Studite, Letter 264; Greek heading: Εὐστρατίῳ ἀρχιητρῷ.

I knew the honored worth of your love even before, when I was deemed worthy of your veneration [proskynesis, the respectful greeting], but I did not yet know how great and how vast it was; but through our spiritual son Adrianus we have heard so many good things about you, and the report so disposed us toward affection (especially because you remain above the heresy [hairesis; here, iconoclasm], being preserved like one unscorched in the midst of flame from communion with the heretics), that we have given fervent thanks to our good God and have resolved to come into your honored presence and to embrace you from the heart. Thanks, therefore, to the Lord, who has chosen ones even in Byzantis [Constantinople] in the present grievous time, in which Christ is persecuted, together with His Mother and His servants, through the assault upon and dishonoring of their holy icons [eikones; sacred images]; for the insult to the icon is plainly the dishonor of the one depicted in it, even though the persecutors of Christ do not understand this. Is not he who insults the figure [typos] of the life-giving Cross insulting the life-giving Cross itself? Most assuredly. So too in the case of the figure, that is, the icon of Christ. But for those people may there be conversion and a ceasing from their impiety; and as for you, may the Lord still preserve you, together with the lady your spouse, who is also of our own blood, as the account goes, unharmed and unhurt in all things, granting you also many rewards for the good conduct and hospitality shown to the brother and letter-carrier from the beginning until now-since you proclaim many good things about you-and not only this, but also for the revenues of which you were deprived, having fled the fellowship at table of the leader of impiety [asebarches; the chief iconoclast]. May there be for you a heavenly treasure of spiritual graces.