Letter 71: Theodore Studite, Letter 71; Greek heading: Τῇ εἰκονομαχικῇ συνόδῳ ὡς ἐκ προσώπου πάντων τῶν ἡγουμένων.

Following the divine laws and the canonical decrees that nothing which pertains to ecclesiastical good order, much less anything that draws on toward doctrinal disputation, ought to be done or said apart from the judgment of one's own bishop, for this reason, when your authority once and twice summoned our lowliness to such matters, she did not dare to present herself doing anything outside what has been ordained, inasmuch as she is governed by the divine Spirit under the sacred hand of Nikephoros [Patriarch Nikephoros I of Constantinople, the deposed iconophile patriarch] the most holy patriarch. But since certain of the abbots ranked alongside us, making a kind of trial, have decided to come and to enter into adversarial discussions, what else were we to hear but those things which throw our humble heart into consternation? For they say that the summons is for the overthrow of the holy Council that met at Nicaea for the second time [the Second Council of Nicaea, 787, which affirmed the veneration of icons]; that is to say, for the abolition of the veneration of the august icon [eikon, image] of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the Theotokos [the God-bearer, the Virgin Mary], and of all the saints together. Oh, who that hears these things would not groan bitterly from the depth of his heart, seeing that by them the saving dispensation [oikonomia, the divine plan of salvation] of our Lord Jesus Christ is already being overturned? Hear, O heaven, and give ear, O earth; let the most great-voiced Isaiah cry aloud together with us, and all that follows upon these words in sequence; or rather, that we may speak more fittingly, hear, O east and west, O north and the region beside the sea, in which our affairs now stand, and concerning which men have dared to sit in council. We then, the least of all, both those who have come and those who have not come (for there is one word for both of us, as being of one soul in one divine mind), holding the faith that is in concord with the Church under heaven, namely, to set up and to venerate [proskynesis, the act of reverent veneration] the divine icon of our Savior himself, Jesus Christ, and of his all-holy Mother and of any one whatsoever of the saints: we affirm that we hold this securely not because of the holy Council that met at Nicaea for the second time, nor because of the one that decreed most divinely before it, but rather, being grounded from the very coming of our Lord and God, both in what is written and in what is unwritten, we have securely set foot upon that seat concerning which Christ says, You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. For what argument could be found by one who has chosen to speak against so great a strength of the truth? For if it is confessed that our Lord Jesus Christ was seen in human form and in the shape that is ours, then assuredly he is circumscribed and depicted in an image as we are, even though the same one remains uncircumscribed in his divine form, since he is the mediator of God and of men, preserving inviolate the properties of each of the two natures of which he consists. But if he is not circumscribed, he has lost his being as a man, much less as mediator, since by the abolition of his being circumscribed all the properties that stand in the same row with it are abolished along with it. For if he is not circumscribed, neither is he tangible. But if he is at once tangible and able to be felt (and it is foolish to contradict this, for these things belong to a body, the one that falls under touch and color), how is he not also circumscribed, from which it follows that he is also passible? And if he is circumscribed and passible, then altogether he is also clearly to be venerated, even according to the form in which he is circumscribed, since the glory of the prototype is not divided in the derivative image, according to Basil the Great; for the honor of the icon ascends to the prototype, clearly to whatever prototype it may be, whether natural or made by art. Since indeed in the case of the figure of the precious cross the same principle is to be understood: for by the veneration of the figure the life-giving wood is venerated together with it, just as conversely it is of necessity abolished together with it by its abolition. Or is not the confession of the figure a confession of the life-giving cross, just as also the denial is so by the likeness of the reverse relation? The analogy, then, is to be taken with respect to both the icon of Christ and Christ himself, for everyone who comes together with us. And it is not yet the time for a doctrinal unfolding, persuading even the exceedingly dull of mind to look up readily toward the rays of the truth. This is our evangelical faith, sinners that we are; this is our apostolic confession, lowly as we are; or if you will, this is our religion handed down from the fathers, least of all though we be. Against this, not only is it true that this man or that, of those now or of those of old, but not even if Peter and Paul (for let us speak of things that cannot be admitted as though they could be admitted), nor even if one came from the very heavens decreeing and preaching otherwise, could we receive him as one in communion, since he does not march in step with the sound teaching of the faith. And in the face of these things, whatever may seem good to your authority, our humility is ready to endure even unto death rather than to become deniers of this our sincere confession.