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Council question
- Thread starter themuzicman
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In 754 the Iconoclast Emperor Constantine V called in the imperial city a council of 338 bishops. Through cowardice and servility they approved the heretical attitude of the emperor and his father Leo III, also the arguments of the Iconoclast party and their measures against the defenders of the sacred images. They anathematized St. Germanus of Constantinople and St. John Damascene, and denounced the orthodox as idolaters, etc.; at the same time they resented the spoliation of the churches under pretext of destroying images.
This "Council" was later overturned and condemned in the 7th Ecumenical Council, the 2nd Council of Nicea, in 787 AD, were iconoclasm was destroyed, and the veneration of icons was brought back as it had always been.
7th Ecumenical Council-Condemned iconoclasm, which held that the use of images constituted idolatry; Condemned Adoptionism, which held that Christ was not the Son of God by nature but only by adoption, thereby denying the Hypostatic Union; Defined that veneration of images and relics of saints is both right and beneficial.
The Decision of the Council
Restoration of the IconsConcerning the teaching of icons
Venerating icons, having them in churches and homes, is what the Church teaches. They are "open books to remind us of God." Those who lack the time or learning to study theology need only to enter a church to see the mysteries of the Christian religion unfolded before them.
Concerning the doctrinal significance of icons
Icons are necessary and essential because they protect the full and proper doctrine of the Incarnation. While God cannot be represented in His eternal nature ("...no man has seen God", John 1:18), He can be depicted simply because He "became human and took flesh." Of Him who took a material body, material images can be made. In so taking a material body, God proved that matter can be redeemed. He deified matter, making it spirit-bearing, and so if flesh can be a medium for the Spirit, so can wood or paint, although in a different fashion.
I do not worship matter, but the Creator of matter, who for my sake became material and deigned to dwell in matter, who through matter effected my salvation... —St. John of Damascus
The seventh and last Ecumenical Council upheld the icondules' postion in AD 787. They proclaimed: Icons... are to be kept in churches and honored with the same relative veneration as is shown to other material symbols, such as the 'precious and life-giving Cross' and the Book of the Gospels. The 'doctrine of icons' is tied to the Orthodox teaching that all of God's creation is to be redeemed and glorified, both spiritual and material.
Some final thoughts on icons:
Icons... were dynamic manifestations of man's spiritual power to redeem creation through beauty and art. The colors and lines of the [icons] were not meant to imitate nature; the artists aimed at demonstrating that men, animals, and plants, and the whole cosmos, could be rescued from their present state of degradation and restored to their proper 'Image'. The [icons] were pledges of the coming victory of a redeemed creation over the fallen one... the artistic perfection of an icon was not only a reflection of the celestial glory --it was a concrete example of matter restored to its original harmony and beauty, and serving as a vehicle of the Spirit. The icons were part of the transfigured cosmos —Nicolas Zernov (1898-1980), The Russians and Their Church
The icon is a song of triumph, and a revelation, and an enduring monument to the victory of the saints and the disgrace of the demons. —St. John of Damascus
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