Letter 320: Theodore Studite, Letter 320; Greek heading: Ἰωάννῃ ἡγουμένῳ.

Gladly did I receive your holy letter, and more gladly still did I read it, sent as it was from one who is at once my father, beloved, and a confessor [one who suffered for the faith without dying]. Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, O man of God, manly in spirit, steadfast in heart. What a contest you have waged! First, by being torn away into imprisonment from the brother who was deceived [misled into the iconoclast heresy], as a son of light. And again there is arrest, again confinement; and where? In the very place from which you ought to have been confirmed, that from there you might instead be cast out. But it was not so: God set you as a reproof to the one who leads the way and to those who follow after him. I beseech you therefore, my father, do not hold communion with them in anything, but as one who is truly blameless and a confessor of Christ keep yourself unharmed, so that you may shine forth still more in virtue, being and being called a luminary in the world. And pray for me, that I may be saved, who am utterly worthless and have nothing worthy of praise, even though you yourself, out of love, have praised this and that in me.