Letter 425: Theodore Studite, Letter 425; Greek heading: Παντολέοντι λογοθέτῃ.

The virtue of others has become known to us by report, but yours, my most honored master, was known to us formerly by sight, and now by report, which has reached even to the remote place in which we are. And what is the report? That your Spirit-moved mouth has spoken out boldly to utter the wisdom of God, words of truth for the benefit and salvation both of your own soul and of the whole Church among us. And blessed are you, and blessed is your name, and may all the pious who have heard praise you; and may there be a crown of graces upon your honored head and a golden collar upon your sacred neck, O son of obedience, child of light, nursling of piety. Thus says the Lord: "Open your mouth and I will fill it," in return for your having obeyed my voice. For it is a commandment of the Lord not to keep silent at a time when the faith is in danger; for "Speak," he says, "and do not be silent"; and, "If anyone draws back, my soul takes no pleasure in him"; and, "If these keep silent, the stones will cry out." So that, when the matter concerns the faith, it is not permitted to say: "Who am I? A priest? But by no means. A ruler? Not that either. A soldier? And where? A farmer? Not even this. A poor man, providing for himself only his daily food; I have no word or concern about the matter at hand." Alas! The stones cry out, and you are silent and unconcerned? The senseless [inanimate] nature has hearkened to God, and you are a man tossed by the tempest [a waverer]? That which is not endowed with a soul, nor held accountable in a court of judgment, as if in dread of the command, casts forth a voice; and you, who are destined to be called to account by God in the time of examination, even for an idle word, to give a reckoning, even if you are a beggar, speak unreasonably, saying "What concern is this of mine?" These things, my master, says Paul, "I have applied to myself and to Apollos for your sakes, that in us you may learn not to think beyond what is written." So that even the poor man himself is deprived of every excuse on the day of judgment, if he does not now speak as one who will be judged; and for this reason alone, not to mention that anyone of higher rank, by superiority, up to him who wears the diadem himself, for whom the judgment is also unsurpassable; for "the mighty shall be mightily tested," he says, and, "a stern judgment is upon those who are in high place." Speak then, my lord, speak; for this reason I too, wretched as I am, dreading the tribunal, speak. Sound forth even to the God-hearing ears of our pious emperor, since you are among those in high place. No heresy of those that have boiled up out of the Church is more terrible than this iconomachic [icon-fighting] heresy. It has denied Christ, it strikes him in the face, raging both in deed and in word: on the one hand it babbles that Christ cannot be circumscribed [depicted, delimited] according to the character of his body, which is destructive of the doctrine that the Word became flesh (for if he is flesh, he must by all means also be circumscribable, since otherwise the gospel proclamation is a phantasm, after the Manichaean way of thinking); on the other hand, it scrapes, breaks, demolishes, and burns with fire every divine temple, every sacred votive offering on which is the character [image] of Christ, of the Theotokos [the God-bearer, the Virgin Mary], or of any of the saints whatsoever. We Christians are perishing; let us anticipate the face of Christ in confession, let us embrace Christ, whom through the rejection of his holy icon we are denying.