Letter 484: Theodore Studite, Letter 484; Greek heading: Θεοδότῳ στρατηγῷ.

Both the grief and the joy of one who is truly a friend are wont to pass over to the one who loves him, if indeed a single relation is observed in both parties according to the principle of relatives. Since, then, the grief of our most longed-for master concerning communion with the heterodox [the iconoclasts, here also tainted by a forced communion] has now been reported to us by the lady, the most reverend abbess, the affliction has truly touched even us in our lowliness and has produced an aching in our heart, as we ponder this adverse encounter. O the calamity! What is this involuntary leading-away? What is this compulsory partaking, threatening danger to the flesh if one does not choose to partake of the heterodox bread? Of his own will offered in sacrifice, O most Christian mind, is the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ; for the great Apostle says concerning him: who, being in the form of God, counted it not robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Since, then, it is offered of his own will and given of his own will, to those who are willing, but not to those who are unwilling - for the Lord himself in the Gospels says to the apostles, "Will you also go away?" on account of those of his seeming disciples who had already gone away from him. And the answer of the great Peter was this: "To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life; and we have believed and have come to know that you are the Christ, the Son of the living God." And again the great Peter in his own epistle: one must shepherd willingly, but not by compulsion. Let those, therefore, henceforth know - those who by force drag toward their own communion those who do not choose it - that they are acting in a pagan manner [literally "in the manner of the Greeks," i.e. heathens], not providing the body of Christ, which is offered willingly, but on the contrary something bearing the appearance of meat offered to idols, on account of the unwillingness of the one sacrificed in the demon-loving libations made against them. And the argument is true, and the demonstration is plain, and there is no one who hears; but spare, Lord, spare, and give not your inheritance to utter reproach, as one of the prophets somewhere said. And what are we to suffer, O thrice-longed-for and all-praised one? (for it shall be said, even if the word is somewhat too harsh for friendship) Are we to be led away by the present occasion still? Are we to cower before the authority more than is fitting? And where is the voice of the Lord, forbidding human fear and rather defining the fear of God alone, with whom is all authority and the power to cast both soul and body into the Gehenna of fire? Alas for the collapse! Away with the cowering before any person whatsoever, and most of all before one who bears the name of Christian! But nevertheless, come here again, friend and good lord, let us be called back, let us repent; the Lord is near to those who seek him; and he does not will our fall in any of the things wherein we sin, but loves us, once fallen, to rise again quickly, and, sinning, to turn back, and this as often as it may also happen through some mischance of folly. And your honored soul might perhaps say: "He who has struck will also heal." And what manner of thing is the penance? For nothing is incurable when it is tended; the word of healing is not burdensome to us.