Letter 90: Theodore Studite, Letter 90; Greek heading: Ἱλαρίωνι ἀρχιμανδρίτῃ.

I have found, late in the day, an opportunity to greet my holy father by letter; for, as your Reverence knows, since the heresy [iconoclasm] is raging and we have been removed far away through exile, it is a rare thing to find a letter-carrier, and above all a trustworthy one. I long, then, to learn how things stand with your Paternity: where and how you are, and through what you have been carried about by the lawless ones. Indeed I suppose entirely, since you surpass the many in virtue, that you have suffered many afflicting and constricting things; for where the strength according to God is deep, there too the war of the adversaries is bitter. But nevertheless it is also yours to say, O father, "I am strong for all things in Christ who strengthens me." You know how the many of our own order forsook us, whose names I shall willingly pass over, having loved the present age. Alas for the calamity, alas for the defeat! "If the light that is in you," Scripture says, "be darkness, how great is that darkness?" And "if the salt has become foolish [lost its savor], with what shall it be salted?" Beseeching and writhing I cry out. These things, father, it is not for me to teach you. "The bellows has failed," the prophet says, "in vain does the silversmith refine silver." How much did our hierarch and true shepherd do, how much did the brotherhood do for itself? And all of it stale: a small assault of the contrary wind, and the ship of souls, crew and all, goes to the depth of impiety. To those men may it be granted, late though it be, to swim up again and to recover from the defeat; but as for you, may the good God preserve you, contending in the struggle, laboring, to the great profit of His Church, to the boast of Byzantis [Constantinople], to the glory of the monks, and also praying for me the sinner and his child, that I may remain safe, following you my holy fathers.