Here are a few excerpts from the actual 7th Ecumenical council which dealt with images:
Anathema to the
calumniators of the
Christians, that is to the
image breakers.
Anathema to those who apply the words of
Holy Scripture which were spoken against
idols, to the venerable images....
Anathema to those who say that
Christianshave recourse to the images as to gods.
Anathema to those who call the sacred images
idols. (Session1)
.. To make our confession short, we keep unchanged all the
ecclesiastical traditions handed down to us, whether in writing or verbally, one of which is the making of pictorial representations, agreeable to the history of the preaching of the
Gospel, a tradition useful in many respects, but especially in this, that so the
incarnation of the
Word of God is shown forth as real and not merely phantastic....
For by so much more frequently as they are seen in artistic representation, by so much more readily are men lifted up to the memory of their prototypes, and to a longing after them; and to these should be given due salutation and
honourable reverence (ἀσπασμὸν καὶ τιμητικὴν προσκύνησιν), not indeed that
true worship of
faith (λατρείαν) which pertains alone to the divine nature....
For the
honour which is paid to the image passes on to that which the image represents, and he who reveres the image reveres in it the subject represented....
