Letter 332: Theodore Studite, Letter 332; Greek heading: Συμεὼν μονάζοντι.

Having received in my hands the letter of your holiness, and having read it and learned each of the things that have befallen both you and the holy fathers of ours who are with you, whose names are in the book of life on account of the sacred exile of them all and their migration to a foreign land, and the trial-laden and afflictive treatment carried out by the godless men through deportation hither and thither and through close confinement, I, the lowly one, at once groaned at what trials the present time has brought upon the churches of God as it spies them out, and at the same time I called blessed the contests of those who are persecuted for the sake of Christ; and then I called you blessed also, you who have become for us an angel [messenger] of all the things that have been enacted as in a drama, who did not shrink from giving your hand to write to me, a man worthy of nothing, and to set forth in detail the whole matter of the affliction. In return for these things, may the Lord bless you, and strengthen you yet further, and confirm you in the implacable steadfastness of the witness [martyria] of Christ. For indeed I have learned that, having engaged after your stand [in the confession] with John the arch-impious one [the iconoclast disputant], you did not draw back, nor did you come off second in the contest of words, but standing firmly against him you overthrew him and silenced him youthfully [boldly] by the word of the truth that was given to you by the energy of the Holy Spirit. For indeed there is not present in those who have been deceived any power of speech, since there is neither light nor demonstration of truth nor anything upright nor holy, while they journey through in darkness with an uncomprehending heart and a foolish wisdom -- or, to speak the truth, with unwisdom and ignorance and blindness. One thing only, both first and last, is theirs: the power of darkness; this is for them both reason and definition and faith and glory and weapon. "By their works you shall know them," said the Lord. For what impious and Judaic [Jewish] deed have they not committed? They have outraged Christ, the Theotokos [Mother of God], the saints; for those whose bodily likenesses are dishonored -- to those very ones, the prototypes, the outrage is sent back; and for this reason the iconoclasts [eikonomachoi, image-fighters] would rightly be called Antichrists, since the Theologian and Evangelist [John] says, "And now there are many Antichrists." These things are small in comparison with your understanding, but they are tokens of the love that has been given to us by God in one mind and one soul. But pray for me, good brother, that I may contend in the same measure as you, and deign to make known to me again how you are faring, and how the affairs of your sacred company [synodia, monastic community] stand and shall stand.