Letter 430: Theodore Studite, Letter 430; Greek heading: Ἐπισκόποις διὰ Κύριον πεφυγαδευμένοισ.

Having just now been informed, this lowly one, of the matters concerning your blessedness, O thrice-longed-for fathers, I rejoiced greatly and glorified our good God. But that I was not counted worthy to see you and to enjoy the graces that are in you, by this too I was exceedingly grieved; for I was about to behold men of God, hierarchs of the Lord, blessed men, luminaries of the world, supports of the faith, and whatever else of the good things they both are and are called. Oh, the loss! Oh, the calamity! Yet our many sins are the cause of what has befallen. And we do not marvel at the misfortune, but we put forward our supplication. What is it? That by letters you may console us for the deprivation, admonishing, enlightening, strengthening, intimating whatever things are true, whatever are venerable, whatever are just, whatever are steadfast, whatever are contested in the struggle [for the faith], if there is any virtue and if there is any praise of confession [the public confessing of the faith under persecution]. These things may you write, and also how Christ depicted [in an image] is to be venerated [proskynesis, the act of reverential bowing/veneration], whether by the same name or by a kindred name, since the one belongs to orthodoxy, the other to contrary opinion; and how, the veneration being directed toward Christ and toward His icon [eikon, the holy image], it is one veneration or two, since the one view is ours, the other that of the iconoclasts [the image-fighters]; for of those things whose hypostatic likeness is one, of these the veneration too is one and the same, apart from the substance of the icon being in no way itself venerated. This little discourse of ours is by way of reminder, not of teaching, whereas your more perfect words are in every way as much more excellent as the chrism [of consecration] that surpasses; whereby may you complete the course set before you, most holy ones, most manfully, as those who shall receive the crown of righteousness.