Letter 412: Theodore Studite, Letter 412; Greek heading: Εἰρήνῃ πατρικίᾳ.

Formerly, while there was your submission [hypoptosis: your acquiescence to the iconoclast authorities], a letter to your Honor was a grief to me; but now it is also exceedingly full of joy, on account of your rising up again and the scourgings inflicted upon your honored flesh for the confession of Christ. And well done, well done, most manly among women, that you have wrought a recovery in the wrestling more illustrious than the defeat, having gladdened both God and the angels and the most pious among men. And you are truly noble indeed, you who have set out from the risings of the sun [from the East]; you are a lover of God and a lover of virtue, you a slayer of the passions and an enemy of the world. How praiseworthy is your name, and how proclaimed your testimony! What does this mean? You took up the evangelical sword as a soldier of Christ; in ecstasy you cut through the bonds of the body; you severed yourself from a head that bows down [your husband], from a daughter left as a single branch; saying "Farewell" to the imperial city, to your conspicuous family, to your eminent friends, to your most splendid household, to your most extraordinary rank, to the multitude of your servants upon the earth, to possessions of every kind, and to the rest, which it is not easy for me to recount; and taking up the cross-bearing life, you were banished somewhere far off, as I have learned, on an island. Blessed are you, and blessed the fruit of your martyrdom [witness]. And whence comes to you all this good, the great glory, the greatest praise, but from the achievements wrought by you beforehand, from your much intercession and prayer, from your surpassing love of beneficence and your monk-loving heart? The fruits did not perish, even if for a little while they were shaken; the adversary serpent did not break down your tower of virtue, even though he bit it; the envy of those who mocked has been repelled, the idle prattle of those who reproached has fallen. Christ has conquered in you and through you, O fair among women, O lover of the martyrs, and, for the third time, O my mother; for I call you this in the spirit, as a fellow-contestant and as nearer than the kindred recognized according to the flesh; for thus the Spirit knows how to join together those who are brought to birth from it. I know your labors, I know the sinew-wearying toils of your soul, all that you will endure, having been torn away from the world. But take courage; great is your reward in the heavens; you are accounted a bride of Christ, even though [coming] from a husband, a fellow-citizen of the just and the holy, if indeed we shall persevere in the divine confessions to the end. And now I exhort and earnestly entreat you to bear with patience the exile and the deprivation of all things, contemplating the heavenly things, knowing that what is upon the earth is a plaything and swift to perish. With you is your guardian angel of life, Christ himself, who said: I and the Father will come and will make our abode with him. But one thing I bring to your remembrance: take care of yourself, embracing a more comforting regimen; for it is not now so much a season for self-discipline [enkrateia: ascetic restraint] as it was formerly. And finally, pray for me the sinner, that I may bring my life into harmony with my words.