Second Council of Nicaea, Part 1

The Second Council of Nicaea (24 September - 13 October 787) was the last of seven ecumenical councils that took place with participation from both the Western Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches. It took place on the site of the first council, Nicaea (now called İznik, Bursa, in Turkey). Its purpose was to debate the use of idols and images, but covered some other topics.

The religious use of icons had been suppressed in the Eastern Orthodox Church during the reign of Leo III (717 - 741). I talked about it in 2013. His son, Constantine V, also enforced the ban on images at the Council of Hieria, which Constantine referred to as the seventh ecumenical council. That designation was overturned, however, at the currently discussed council.

Patriarch Tarasios of Constantinople was appointed by the Empress Irene—he had been a senator, and secretary to Irene—and wished to restore the use of icons. He and Irene requested the council with the support of Pope Adrian I, who agreed to participate. They tried meeting initially in 786 at a church in Constantinople, but bishops who were opposed to icons sent soldiers to break up the gathering.

Irene then sent the guards on a mission against Arabs attacking in Asia Minor to get them out of the way. The Council was assembled again, this time in Nicaea. Tarasios disguised two monks as emissaries of the patriarchs of Antioch and Jerusalem to give more legitimacy to the Council. For those bishops opposing, he warned them that they could keep their positions if they did not make any public statements against the decisions of the Council. Once these conditions were established, the Council assembled with over 300 bishops or their proxies, with Tarasios presiding.

There were seven sessions in all. The first dealt with the subject of whether dissenting bishops would be allowed to remain in office. I've already mentioned how Tarasios dealt with this. The second session read a letter from Pope Adrian, translated into Greek, explaining his approval of images. The letter was a little condemnatory on Byzantine attitudes toward papal authority, but the residing clergy finally agreed to submit to the pope.

In the third session, the bona fides of the eastern representatives (Antioch and Jerusalem, etc.) were examined. It was decided that they were, in fact, not authentic. This did not cause the disbandment or illegitimacy of the Council, however.

The remaining three sessions started to tackle (finally) the question of icons, with pros and cons presented. We will finish up with those tomorrow.

The Second Council of Nicaea

We have talked about the Council of Nicaea before, but always the First Council in 325. There were several ecumenical councils. The seventh was the second to be held in Nicaea, and was called to deal with the subject of iconoclasm.

I addressed iconoclasm before: the idea that images of religious figures should be forbidden came from Moses' third commandment about not making "graven images."  In 787, the Second Council met to deal with the subject (they hoped) once and for all.

Arguments for included invoking various lines from the Old Testament:

• Genesis 31:34 : "Now Rachel had taken the images, and put them in the camel's furniture, and sat upon them. And Laban searched all the tent, but found them not."
• Exodus 25:19, regarding the fashioning of the Ark of the Covenant: "And make one cherub on the one end, and the other cherub on the other end."
• Ezekiel 41:18: And it was made with cherubims and palm trees, so that a palm tree was between a cherub and a cherub; and every cherub had two faces

...and others.

Over the course of three weeks (24 September to 13 October), presentations were made followed by debate. At the end, the use of religious images was allowed, reversing the edict against them made by Byzantine Emperor Leo III decades earlier. The official statement made declared that veneration offered to the image was actually passed to the subject of the image, and was therefore a good thing.

This Council also declared that every altar should contain a saint's relic. Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches still adhere to this practice.

Iconoclasm

The word "iconoclast" today usually denotes someone who challenges tradition, but the origin of the word was in the religiously and politically charged world of Constantinople in the Early Middle Ages.

To be honest, "iconoclast" (a destroyer of religious images belonging to his own culture) and its opposite, "iconodule" or "iconophile," were terms created much later by historians to describe the iconomachia (war of icons) of the late 8th and early 9th centuries in the Byzantine Empire.

Each side had its arguments, of course. The iconoclasts invoked the third of Moses 10 Commandments against "making graven images." They argued that any proper image had to be made from the same substance as the original, and therefore wood and stone were not appropriate to portray flesh. The only substance available to represent Christ was the Eucharist, which had been decreed to be Christ's flesh. Also, images were incapable of representing Christ's divinity as well as his humanity. Images had been condemned in churches by the Synod of Elvira in 305, because they might distract people from the true reason for being in church.

The iconodules had their own reasons. Once God incarnated as Jesus, representations of the divine on Earth became justified. God did tell Moses to add cherubim to the Ark. Although idols might be false, icons represented important real people and things. Also, there were miracles associated with icons, attesting to divine approval.

There were two periods, called the First Iconoclasm—from 726-787, begun by Emperor Leo III when he replaced an image of Christ with a cross at the entrance to the palace—and the Second Iconoclasm—in 814-842, when Emperor Leo V thought his military failures were the result of displeasing God. Leo III's major opponent was the venerable St. John of Damascus. Leo V had to contend with the prolific pen of St. Theodore of Stoudios.

Iconoclasm was largely an Eastern Christian conflict. Western Christianity never became seriously concerned with it, to the delight of art historians.