Letter 445: Theodore Studite, Letter 445; Greek heading: Σευηριανῷ υἱῷ πνευματικῷ.

As much as your little letter gladdened us, my child, so much did the longer one grieve us. For as though you had not yet so much as raised the matter with us concerning the propositions set forth in it, nor heard from us what was fitting, you have now been moved to put forward these utterances, ostensibly contending with another person, but rather, in fact, setting yourself against the truth, and that though you ought not to be teaching at all, and I say this not so much because you are of subordinate standing (and indeed, bear with me patiently), but because those who have been caught in heretical communion [koinonia, sharing in the Eucharist and worship of heretics], of whom you are one, have no liberty to open the mouth, but must remain in fitting silence and beg for pardon all the days of their life. Furthermore, you do not have such command of doctrinal skill as to know how to speak precisely, having touched neither grammar nor philosophy, whereas even those skilled in these things, when it is a matter according to God, do not lay down any doctrine of their own, but follow the God-bearing Fathers. Whence, then, I ask, did it come upon you to say, "The icon [eikon, sacred image] of Christ is not venerated relatively"? For do you know what relation is? Relation belongs to things that are toward something, and toward something are the archetype and the derivative, that is, Christ and his icon, because each is held within the other, and they are not severed either in power or in glory. Behold, in your ignorance you do not know, and it is well to apply that saying: I have seen an evil under the sun, a man who seemed in his own eyes to be wise, and, what is harder than this, contending eagerly to instruct others. And what manner of thing is your second problem as well? "Christ is worshipped [latreuetai, given the worship due to God alone] in his icon, so that the icon too is to be worshipped." Whence have you this, or from whom have you learned it, that you lay it down as doctrine? For none of the saints has ever yet said this, but rather that Christ is venerated in his icon and the icon is to be venerated, whether as honored or as revered. For both bring the mind to the same thing, and rightly so, since worship, like faith, is referred to the Holy Trinity alone, but the other things to the others: to the Mother of God, to the life-giving Cross, to the saints, to the venerable icon of Christ, and to all other holy icons, and that to the degree that the archetypes surpass their derivatives. If, then, Christ is worshipped, as you say, in the icon, since worship belongs to the Trinity, the Father and the Spirit are also worshipped together in the icon. And what is gathered from this? That the Father and the Spirit too have been made flesh; than which what could be more impious? And since again you say, "The icon of Christ also is to be worshipped," by consequence you will be found to be nothing other than a Tetradite [one who adds a fourth to the Trinity], worshipping, along with the Trinity, also the icon of Christ. Yet it is not the case that, because the same follows for one who venerates the Trinity, since he also venerates the icon, the same absurdity follows; for it has been said that honor and veneration [proskynesis] are shared in common even down to any ordinary person, but not so faith and worship. For just as we believe in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit alone, so also do we worship. Having given ear to these things, hold yourself back, brother, I beseech you, from the empty-talking and Tzykalic heresy, that is, the Kendukladic heresy [a derisive name for the faction holding this view], which stands diametrically opposed to the iconoclast one. But if, which may it not be, you persist, know that you have no part with us, or rather not even with any orthodox person at all. With pain this letter was dictated by me concerning you.