Letter 542: Theodore Studite, Letter 542; Greek heading: Ἀντωνίῳ ἐπισκόπῳ.

Your fatherly Holiness has now made a fitting address, not to us in our lowliness—far from it (for we know ourselves, what manner of men we are, as falling short even of those ranked in the lowest degree according to the measure of virtue)—but to all the godly fathers and confessors, like some good angel announcing words of greeting and binding us all together in the manner of love. This is just and fitting: that those scattered, each in a different place, for the sake of the word of God and the testimony of His only-begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ, should speak to one another by letters and be joined together spiritually through written records, and by no means be reckoned, in our silence, as though dead. For we know this too, that the blessed Apostle Paul, together with his fellow God-sent apostles, called out to one another from afar and came to one and the same purpose by the word that joins them together, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom of God to all the world; in which the Holy Spirit also—though it is bold to say it—has set us and enjoins us: "Speak," He says, "and do not keep silent, for I have many people here" [Acts 18:9-10]; and elsewhere, "If he draws back, my soul has no pleasure in him" [Hebrews 10:38]. So fearful is the judgment of silence—and the more so amid this present willfully malicious deafness of those who incline to the heresy [the iconoclasts]. Which thing your Holiness, as you have written, performing in a manner befitting God, says that you undergo many trials at the hands of those who do not wish a holy word to sound in their ears, but who have denied the God-painted icon [eikon, the sacred image] of Christ, of the Theotokos [the God-bearer, the Virgin Mary], and of any whatsoever of His servants. May you then remain, O thrice-longed-for one, set upon the lampstand of the word by the gospel command, and shining upon all who are in the house, so that those who keep their eyes single may receive the light, while those who close fast the senses of their own blindness may reap its fruit; and may you pray that we too do this, and that we carry off the gift of protection [or: of presiding] without blame. We wish you to know that one of the lamps has flown away to the Lord, namely the most holy metropolitan of Synnada, even as before him the renowned brothers and fathers, Athanasius, the superior of Paulopetrion, and John, the master of Chalcis. And the heretics indeed think they are cutting down the confessing fullness of Christ, but they do not know that rather it is multiplied, the perhaps molted flock soaring up again together by the zeal of those who have contended before. And Christ still sleeps, to some opening a door with ineffable goodness, of others testing the longing in the crown of endurance, and others taking up, like gold that has been assayed, on each occasion into a diadem of the beauty of His glory. These things to you from us, O most blessed one. But may you yourself still entreat God to bring peace to His Church, plucking out every evil from our midst and counting us who are left worthy to come to converse face to face, as you also intimated in your prayerful wish.