Letter 364: Theodore Studite, Letter 364; Greek heading: Μιχαὴλ Συννάδων.

Long ago I learned that you, the pillar and bulwark of the truth, had been released from your former place of confinement by those who overthrow piety [the iconoclasts], and were being detained in a town; and I wished to write to Your Beatitude, but I held myself back from speaking once and twice and not being deemed worthy of a reply in return. But since I judged it to be a great thing for me, small and worthless as I am, even merely to hear a word of address from her [Your Beatitude], which I have now received through your fellow-contestant, my holy father of Kathara [the monastery of Kathara], by letter, I have set out cheerfully and come to the writing of this -- which brings no benefit at all to your godly-perfected virtue, since I am poor and feeble, but which works consolation for me, the sinner, as for some child conversing with a father worthy of admiration, contending nobly on behalf of Christ. For I understand the place in which you are held to be a place of punishment, chosen not by the situation of the place, but by the cruelty of the one who holds power. And there have come together in one and the same place a tried punisher against a more tried antagonist, and the spectacle is shared: for the impious, in their hope of obtaining the things they crave -- which the Lord beats back; but for us full of contest (for how could it not be?), yet also firmly founded, as we are tempered by manly valor for the struggle. This is my brief address, which, receiving it with condescension, you will repay me with your sacred prayers for the salvation of my soul, O most holy and thrice-longed-for one.