Letter 507: Theodore Studite, Letter 507; Greek heading: Φιλοθέῳ κτήτορι.

Most welcome was the letter of your honored self, both to God and to a godly man, because in the present season, in which there is a heretical night-battle and a tempest of unbelief, it made plain to us that you shine like some star among those in your region, neither darkened by communion with the heretics nor sunk beneath the surge of unbelief. And blessed be the Lord, who has even within the lay order [the rank of the laity] those who hold fast to His law amid the present confusion and overthrow of orthodoxy. Blessed are you, most honored brother, and truly your name fits you [Philotheos, "lover of God"], because you have both loved God and guarded the deposit of the faith. You reported in your letter that you were brought, in such and such a way, by those blessed fathers, who departed to the Lord with a good end, whose names are in the book of life. And it would be well, and this too is a mark of your fervent zeal. But since at their departure, as one left orphaned, you sought once more to be set on firm foundations by our lowliness, we for our part are worthless and of no account; nevertheless, since it is written, "bearing with one another in love" [Ephesians 4:2], for the sake of this love in the Lord we yield and accept your dedication, which is in truth good and praiseworthy. As for your abstaining altogether from communion with the heretics, you both struggled and abstained, as you say, by the grace of Christ, and abstain still; for thus you will show what is dear to your God and what is in communion with Him, for the contrary communion separates one from Christ. But as for the things in which you are compelled by the commanding general [strategos], both to chant psalms together with the heretics and to eat the foods sealed [marked, set apart] by them, on the ground that otherwise the lord general cannot pass through without danger, to this we cannot readily give answer; because strict exactness [akribeia: rigorous observance] altogether forbids the right-minded man to have any share with the heterodox, and to associate with them neither in food nor in drink nor in fellowship. Knowing these things, let your goodness hold fast to its good zeal, building upon the fair foundation the gold-like edifices of strict observance, praying also for our lowliness.