Letter 400: Theodore Studite, Letter 400; Greek heading: Λέοντι πατρικίῳ καὶ σακελλαρίῳ.

If you yourself love to learn the affairs of our humble life, as you have said, governed by your good disposition and your love for your neighbor, how greatly would I, the humble one, be eager to write to your unsurpassable Eminence, learning this very thing, namely the news of your prayed-for health, and seeming to behold your beloved face and to hear your most sweet voice in your condescending conversation and regard toward the letter-carrier (for you receive him most graciously for God's sake, and you converse approachably even with any ordinary person). He has also reported to me how you are grieved at the things that have already been dared because of our sins, groaning and pained in heart over each of the things that are happening. And rightly so; for you are a man of God, having a holy mind, a soul that loves Christ, a knowledge perfected toward God, a harmonious understanding, a sincere belief, in which you are in anguish, being unable to help affairs in the customary way, but seeing the Church thus endangered, the Church which the Lord acquired through his own blood. O master, into what dreadful straits we have come, and how great are the evils we have looked upon! These are the recompenses of the sins that went before; for since we did not see fit to keep God in our knowledge through the keeping of his commandments, but transgressed not one but many, both in private and in public, rending the Gospel of Christ (you understand, wise one, the things I am saying), God has handed us over to the things in which we suffer, that we might not be condemned along with the world [cf. 1 Cor. 11:32], even those who seem to be something. Therefore let not those who are impious exalt themselves within themselves as though they were pious, but let them know full well that they deny Christ by the rejection of his venerable icon [eikon: holy image; the central issue of the second iconoclast controversy, then raging under Emperor Leo V]; and he [Christ] still postpones to send forth his retribution out of forbearance and the mercy of his loving-kindness and for the sake of repentance, but he knows how to take vengeance in the end upon the unconverted. You yourself, therefore, as one who loves God, pray for the loosing of these hardships, but do not entrust it to us, who are not sufficient even to make atonement to the good God concerning our own sins; nevertheless, we too make our request, since we also ask.