Letter 30: Theodore Studite, Letter 30; Greek heading: Νικηφόρῳ πατριάρχῃ.

It is not necessary to signify by letter to the angel of Your Beatitude the things that were announced beforehand by word of mouth, even if not through both of us in our humility; but lest yesterday's assembly of the bishops, convened according to your command, having taught something other than the things said in it by us, should muddy your sacred ears, we have judged it fitting to render up in summary the whole substance of our defense. We, then, O most blessed one, are orthodox in all things, rejecting every heresy [hairesis], and accepting every synod, both ecumenical and local, that has been approved; moreover we also securely hold fast the sacred and canonical ordinances proclaimed by them. For it is not possible to divide rightly to perfection the word of truth for the one who supposes himself to hold the right faith, yet is not guided straight by the divine canons. And indeed we also admit the lawful dispensations [oikonomiai: provisional accommodations made for the sake of a greater good] made by the saints according to the occasion, since even our own act now, in our humility, of greeting Your Holiness on account of the expulsion of the oikonomos [the steward; here Joseph, the steward of Hagia Sophia], is not among acts of strict observance, but among those of those who exercise much dispensation and come together. And the most holy patriarch who preceded Your Holiness we received on this same principle into the matter now at hand, when we returned from exile, the adulterous union having been broken asunder, and the oikonomos having been barred from the sacred ministry, on this ground: that "there be no part for us, by reason of indiscriminately receiving communion from Your Holiness together with the man who performed the adulterous marriage, neither in the present age nor in the age to come." When he had already said that "I was using dispensation in the very act of giving him communion for a time," and then declared also thus, that "my hands would have been cut off before being applied to the adulterous crowning, or before I crowned them at all" - on these grounds, then, we held communion with him until his repose. And Your Holiness in turn we received into the dignity of the high priesthood, even as we also commemorate you in the sacred ministry day by day. And in nothing is there any doubt, except on account of the oikonomos - he being deposed manifoldly by the sacred canons, and especially after the excommunication of nine years - that he should again perform the sacred ministry, and not in some hidden corner (for that would have been bearable, since we do not communicate in the deed), but that, as the saying is, in the very fountain-head of our own priesthood, together with your sincere manner of life, he should enter in and concelebrate forever. The just thing, then, and the holy thing, and the thing free of scandal for the peoples of God, and especially for the order to which we belong, is that the one who entered unworthily be cast out of the sacred ministry, while we commemorate Your Holiness and hold communion with every hierarch and priest who are not manifestly under condemnation, according to the Theologian [Gregory the Theologian, i.e. Gregory of Nazianzus]. But if this is by no means done, on account of our sins - we do not say this that anything may happen (the word is not from fear, but from pity for what is common) - then in our humiliation, what is done by Your Holiness is uncanonical and unlawful; since we, for our part, will endure by the power of God whatever may befall by His permission, but we bear witness to Your Holiness in the presence of Christ, in the hearing of the holy angels, that you are working a great schism in our Church. And though we are men exercising authority, yet by the authority of the sacred and divine canons, intelligibly and even unwillingly, we both begin and will obey. But we beseech Your Holiness, incline your ear and hearken to our voice, as a skilled physician, as a good shepherd, to bar the one sheep from the sacred ministry and to gain the whole flock free of scandal, and not to let our Church, which the Lord and our God purchased with His own blood, be ruined by the scab of the one. For as for idle talk, let those who wish prate idle talk, and let the slanderers slander; we are ready for every defense, for the dissolution of every accusatory proposition. We are your friends and those who sing your praises, and indeed those of our most pious and gloriously victorious sovereigns. And since we are thus, for what reason the disturbance? For whose sake will the things come about that will come about, if indeed they are contrary to the commandments of God? Grant us your sacred prayer.