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Second Council of Nicea (787) The Second Council of
Nicaea was prompted not by a doctrine about the nature of Jesus but by the
iconoclastic controversy. It is the seventh and the last of the councils
which were recognized by both the Catholic and Orthodox Churches.
This controversy began in the eighth century and gained strength in the
eastern lands of the empire. Was it right to make painted or sculptured
representations of Jesus and the saints, and direct homage to such images?
The defenders of image worship claimed that if Jesus was really a man, it
was logical that he could be represented in visible form. When the Jews
had been forbidden to make images of God, the reason given (Ot 4: 12) had
been that they 'saw no form' of God.
In Jesus, however, God had shown Himself in visible form, and therefore if
the making of images was wrong, this was denying the Incarnation. The
Monophysite East thought that the humanity of Christ was inseparable from
his divinity and the effort to represent the aleptos, or incomprehensible,
was useless. The drawing of Jesus' image was trying to separate his
humanity from the divinity. The conflict over images remained as a
doctrinal argument until in 726 Leo III (717 -41), known as the 'Isaurian'
(from Germanicia, Mara§) enforced Iconoclasm. The reason for his attack on
images is not clear. He may have wanted to insure the support of his army
which was mostly recruited from Anatolia where iconoclastic belief was
strong, influenced by Judaism and Islam.
His edict enforced the removal of all the icons from churches. The
controversy which he began lasted for over a hundred years and contributed
to the alienation of the Byzantine Church from that of Rome. The
iconoclastic policy of the State continued through the reigns of his
successors Constantine V (741-45) and Leo IV (775-80). The destruction of
images, eikons, lasted until the succession of Irene (780-97) upon her
husband's death, as regent for her infant son Constantine VI. Irene was a
zealous iconodule and wanted to restore the holy images.
However, much of the army was still iconoclast and she moved with caution.
She decided to summon a Second Council of Nicaea. It was held in the
church of St. Sophia, whose restored ruins still survive. Among other
things this council declared that icons deserved reverence (Greek
proskynesis) but not adoration (Greek lalreia) which was due to God alone
and condemned the iconoclasts. This statement was confirmed by Pope Adrian
I, but partly because of an incompetent translation it was not acceptable
generally in the West.
For instance, the two words, proskynesis and lalreia, were equated in
translation so it appeared that the council ordered Christians to worship
icons in the same way they worshipped God. With this council the division
between Rome and Constantinople, which had been stimulated by the Fourth
Ecumenical Councils in Chalcedon (451) became complete, the Roman Catholic
Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church each going its own way.
The political and economic failures of Irene and her successors caused a
reaction in favor of iconoclasm again from 814 until 843. The iconophile
cause was meanwhile being maintained by the monks of the monastery of
Studios at Constantinople under their abbot Theodore (759-826).
The empress Theodora, who ruled as regent for Michael III, after the death
of her iconoclast husband Theophilos (829-42) summoned a First Council of
Constantinople, which reaffirmed the rulings of the Seventh Ecumenical
Councils of 787 and on the first Sunday in Lent 843 restored the icons for
the last time with a procession in St. Sophia that has come to be known as
'the Triumph of Orthodoxy.' Although not popular with the multitude the
iconoclast emperors were successful soldiers and without them the life of
the Byzantine empire might have been shorter.
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