Letter 451: Theodore Studite, Letter 451; Greek heading: Ἰωάννῃ Σάρδησ.

For some time now we have heard that your fatherly holiness has been gravely ill, and that just lately you were all but despaired of; and we, lowly as we are, were so dismayed and so sorrowfully shaken that we made to set out and reach you there and to take in the dreaded report with our own eyes. But this proved impossible because of the circumstances that press upon us. Therefore we were compelled, as it were, to fly to you by means of this letter as though in the body, and to behold you, the good father, the genuine friend, the noble martyr of the truth - if indeed it is for the truth's sake that you are both an exile and a prison-captive, and, even before these things, a spectacle, to speak in the apostolic manner [cf. 1 Corinthians 4:9], both to angels and to men, on that day when your sacred head was cast to the ground by the impious before the face of the Caiaphas-like council [comparing the iconoclast synod to the council of Caiaphas that condemned Christ]. Oh, what is happening among us? Why do you hasten to depart from this world, you the pillar of the Church? Remain with us yet a while, remain, suffer hardship together with the Gospel as a good soldier [cf. 2 Timothy 2:3]. Do you see how the war is upon us, how we are struck and we strike in turn for the sake of the Word? Yes, we entreat you, hold out; ask Christ - whom you have confessed and confess to be venerated [proskynesis: the veneration owed to icons] as inscribed in His human form - and He will hearken to your supplication. But if you must by all means depart, since Providence so commands, you yourself, we are well assured, will pass over, carrying off the prize of confession; yet for us, render the good God merciful by your intercessions, and indeed render Him merciful also so as to hasten to visit His own Church.