Letter 286: Theodore Studite, Letter 286; Greek heading: Νικηφόρῳ, τῷ ἁγιωτάτῳ πατριάρχῃ.

Often, when I have set out to write to the sacred head of Your Beatitude, I have been hindered, partly because I was conscious of my own unworthiness, and partly because I was in want on account of the trials. But now, having despised both considerations, and taking courage in the Trinity, wretched as I am, I speak as follows. Hail, true trophy of victory over impiety, you who in a four-horse chariot of virtues complete the course of the faith; hail, great sun of orthodoxy, by whose confessing rays the whole inhabited world is illumined; hail, champion of the truth, who, like the God-bearing men of old, are distinguished by the glory of virtue. You forsook the lofty throne [the patriarchal see of Constantinople] for the sake of Him who humbled Himself unto death, even the death of the cross; you forsook the high-priestly ministrations and the comforts, choosing rather to suffer ill together with the others in the confessor's manner than to have the passing enjoyment of sin -- and yet, since not even amid those ministrations, although you were in them, were you living for them, your members being dead to the life that is in the Lord. You bore the deprivation of a holy mother, of honored brothers, being stripped of all things together in every respect. And I do not yet speak of your Christ-like reproaches, the assaults from those in power, the mockeries, the straits, and what amounted to suffocations. You were brought down together with Christ in the night, since He too was betrayed and confined, transferred, you being seated somewhere upon a hill, the martyr of Christ. But well done, for all things turn out for the good for you. Lift up your eyes round about from the watchtower of the mind and behold your children -- that is, your sheep, O good shepherd -- for though they are scattered in body, yet they are united in spirit, having taken up your whole church almost piecemeal, one in one quarter and another in another, and with the beams of confession, like stars, kindling beacon-fire of the light of orthodoxy for those caught in the night-battle of the heresy [iconoclasm]: some of them sacrificed to God through athletic perfection [the consummation of martyrdom], and others still contending, cowering before none of the present things, but being strengthened by your God-inclined prayers. This is your glory, the glory of the church; this is your standard of martyrdom -- which may the time to come receive and glorify God in you, as also at the present. Many are the praises that are owed to you, who contend for the icon [image; eikon] of Christ. But pardon me, O imitator of God, who have presumed out of longing in the things I have uttered, and grant me your sacred prayer, that I may not fall away from being your least child, I who am the most worthless of all on account of my sins.