You also say that Patriarch Nicephorus, while serving in a secret place [2], secretly commemorates the saints, and all the patricians, not to mention others, remain Orthodox. But what does Christ say? Whosoever shall confess Me before men, him will I also confess before My Heavenly Wholesale (Matt. 10:32): and the opposite of this is in the case of renunciation. And if they signed with their own hands, only not to gather together, then this is also a renunciation.

For how will they keep what Christ said: "Him who comes to me I will not cast out" (John 6:39)? Someone comes, asking and wishing to learn the truth, whether it is the abbot or someone else; What will the abbot answer him? Obviously, these are: "I have received a command not to speak; And, oh, if only that were the case! - but also not to accept you into the monastery and not to have communion." And Christ says: "Receive and teach, if any man be shaken, my soul is not pleased with him" (Hebrews 10:38).

So they signed to obey the emperor in spite of Christ. This, brothers and fathers, is what they have done, as I have known for certain. And since you have decreed that I should express what seems important to me, I have declared it before the Witness by God, taking my word to keep it as a secret, fearing temptation. However, you, in saving, save your souls, praying also for me, the humble one.

Notes

1. That is, the emperor Anastasius I (491-518), devoted to the Eutychian and Manichaean heresy.

2. Leo the Armenian first deprived Nicephorus of the right to head the patriarchate, and then achieved his forcible deposition from the cathedra.

Epistle 4 (63). To Theophylact, Bishop of Nicomedia

For the second year I have been anxious and thinking of sending a letter to your sacred head, and only now have I, humble, fulfilled my desire. But it is good that I have been honored with a letter to greet you, my father, the pillar of truth, the pillar of Orthodoxy, the guardian of piety, the strengthening of the Church, the victorious man, the Christ-bearing bishop, the martyr of the confession of God.

Truly, does not the crown of martyrdom belong to you? For you were expelled for Christ's sake, removed from your homeland, you endure much suffering, being weak in body by nature and, as I know, exhausted by an ascetic, God-pleasing life. A host of Orthodox Christians boast of Thee, rejoice in the region of Nicomedia, and exalt Thee, presenting Thee to the world, deflecting from themselves those reproaches which have been puttered from ancient times concerning the Primates there.

Saint Tarasius rejoices, looking at him who was formerly the sheep of his court and was under his hand, and then became a famous pastor, now struggling and in danger for Orthodoxy, for whom he also labored for his part conciliarly, by the grace of God, in the days of the Empress who was named after the world and gave peace, so that the deeds corresponded perfectly to the names. Such were the circumstances of that time, and the present circumstances are bitter and deplorable.

How is it not, when the altars are destroyed, the churches are destroyed, when heresy overthrows everything and persecutes Christ with His Mother and ministers? Verily, are they not persecuted when Their holy icons are destroyed? Can anyone contradict the fact that the Cross is overthrown at the same time, when the image of the Life-Giving Tree is destroyed? If in this case it is possible to say this at the same time, then how can we not agree with this with regard to the icon, for the icon is also an image?

But who am I, wretched and unenlightened, that I should prove this to a divine father and teacher? You, most holy, teach us the most perfect, as the divinely enlightened, and by your very deeds instruct us to patiently endure the present punishments and trials, the first for our sins, and the second for you for your divine love for Christ, Whom you do not cease to pray to that He would quickly replace the shadow of impiety with the dawn of peaceful Orthodoxy.

Notes

1. Written in 816.