Letter 494: Theodore Studite, Letter 494; Greek heading: Βασιλείῳ ἡγουμένῳ.

Your brotherly Honor has always been accustomed to write to us of things beyond our worth, dignifying our nothingness with honors and praises; but we have been taught not to depart from our own measure, but rather to consider ourselves nothing, which indeed we are. And of these matters, enough. The slowness of your honored letters has by no means grieved us. For why, and in what circumstance, was there any compulsion? But what has grieved us (for the things at hand must be uncovered) is the sojourn in the city, and the speech and counter-speech before the ruler [the iconoclast emperor], and the departure under his order, while we were once again involved in the very same dealings of subjection under the dominion of the heterodox [those of false belief; the iconoclasts]; and we would add also the dispatch to the very seat of power that came through the steward [oikonomos; the monastery's administrator], and the dining together and being led away together. All these things have grieved us, most honored one, and they restrain us, forgive us, from any further mingling and intercourse with you, from taking and giving, and whatever else belongs to friendship and to custom; for why, as Scripture says, is my liberty judged by another conscience? And since we have managed [exercised oikonomia, prudent dispensation] sufficiently in what went before, and, as God alone knows, with much affection and almsgiving, it is now necessary both to build up and not to suffer loss on both sides, neither taking on what is another's nor casting away what is our own without reason. The word is addressed to those who understand: "No man can serve two masters," the Truth declared. You are lords and masters and superiors [hegoumenoi; abbots] of your own monasteries and counsels, but we are lowly and of small honor, cast away somewhere here on account of the persecution. Grant us this liberty, and to mourn over our own sins. And I know indeed that the letter is grievous to your Honor, as it is also to us; but nothing is more to be preferred than the love of God, for whose sake we too, together with our holy fathers, have, in the matter of the outrage against Christ, renounced what we have renounced and choose what we hold forth.