Following his release, Theodore made his way back to Constantinople, travelling through north-western Anatolia and meeting with numerous monks and abbots on the way. At the time he appears to have believed that the new emperor, Michael II (r. 820–829), would adopt a pro-icons policy, and he expressed this hope in two letters to Michael. An imperial audience was arranged for a group of iconodule clerics, including Theodore, at which however Michael expressed his intention to "leave the church as he had found it." The abbots were to be allowed to venerate images if they so wished, as long as they remained outside of Constantinople. Theodore returned to Anatolia, in what seems to have been a sort of self-imposed exile.