Iconoclastic heresy and the seventh ecumenical council

Causes and history of the iconoclastic heresy and its overcoming at the Seventh Ecumenical Council. Dogma of Icon Worship.

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Icon veneration in the 4th and 5th centuries came into general use in the Christian Church. According to church teaching, the veneration of icons should consist in the veneration of the person depicted on them. This kind of veneration should be expressed by reverence, worship and prayer to the person depicted on the icon.

But in the 7th century, non-Orthodox views on icon veneration began to be mixed with such church teaching, especially among the common people, who, due to the lack of religious education, for the most part attached the main importance to appearance and ritual in religion. Looking at the icons and praying in front of them, uneducated people forgot to ascend with their mind and heart from the visible to the invisible, and even gradually learned the conviction that the faces depicted on the icons are inseparable from the icons. From here, the worship of the icons proper, and not of the persons depicted, easily developed - a superstition bordering on idolatry developed. Naturally, there were aspirations to destroy such superstition. But, to the misfortune of the Church, the task of destroying superstition was assumed by the civil authorities, having removed the spiritual. Along with the superstitious veneration of icons, the civil authorities, under the influence of political considerations as well, began to abolish icon veneration in general and thus produced the iconoclastic heresy.

The first persecutor of icon veneration was Emperor Leo the Isaurian (717 741), a good commander who issued laws on the reduction of slavery and on the freedom of the settlers, but was ignorant of church affairs. He decided that the destruction of the veneration of icons would return to the empire the areas it had lost and that Jews and Mohammedans would draw closer to Christianity. Bishop Konstantin of Nakolia taught him to regard icon veneration as idolatry.

Iconoclast emperors Leo III the Isaurian and his son Constantine V Copronymus

In the same thought, his Weser-Syrian, a former Mohammedan, now a court official, affirmed. The emperor began the destruction of icons in 726 by issuing an edict against worshiping them. He ordered them to be placed higher in the churches so that the people would not kiss them. Patriarch Herman of Constantinople rebelled against such an order. He was supported by the famous John of Damascus, later a monk of the monastery of St. Savvas in Palestine. Pope Gregory II approved and praised the patriarch for his firmness in upholding icon veneration. He wrote to the emperor that Rome would fall out of his power if he insisted on the destruction of icon veneration. In 730, the emperor ordered the soldiers to remove the especially revered icon of Christ the Enforcer, which stood above the gates of his palace. In vain the crowd of believing men and women begged not to touch the image. The official went up the stairs and began to beat the icon with a hammer. Then some of those present took away the ladder and put to death the fallen official. The army dispersed the people, beat some, and ten people, recognized as the main culprits, were executed after torture. Their memory is August 9th. The image of the Savior on the cross was destroyed and a simple cross was left, because the iconoclasts allowed the cross if there were no human images on it.

9 August muchch. Julianna, Marcion, John, James, Alexy, Demetrius, Photius, Peter, Leonty and Maria patricia, who suffered severely under the emperor Leo the Isaurian for throwing a warrior from the stairs, who, by order of the king, wanted to remove the image of the Savior, who was above the gates in Constantinople . Imprisoned in a dungeon, they were kept in it for about 8 months, beaten daily with 500 blows. After these heavy and prolonged torments, all the holy martyrs were beheaded in the year 730. Their bodies were buried in the Pelagievs (locality in Tsargrad) and after 139 years were found incorrupt. Martyr Photius in some monuments is incorrectly called Phokoyu.

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Read also on the topic:

• Icon veneration in Orthodoxy- Metropolitan Macarius Bulgakov
• world icons- Deacon Andrei Kuraev
• Iconoclastic heresy and the Seventh Ecumenical Council- Nikolai Talberg
• Iconoclastic controversy- Mikhail Posnov
• Commemoration of the Holy Fathers of the VII Ecumenical Council- Archpriest Andrei Ovchinnikov
• VII Ecumenical Council: "Difficulties in Translation"- Ilya Shelekhov
• The First Epistle of Our Holy Father Gregory, Pope, to Emperor Leo the Isaurian about holy icons
• The second epistle of our holy father Gregory, Pope, to Emperor Leo the Isaurian about holy icons
• Against the Lutherans - Word on the veneration of holy icons- Rev. Maxim the Greek

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The Monk John of Damascus, learning about the actions of King Leo, wrote for the citizens of Constantinople his first work in defense of icons, beginning like this: “Recognizing my unworthiness, I, of course, should have kept eternal silence and be content with confessing my sins before God. "I don't think I have the right to remain silent, because I'm more afraid of God than of the emperor. On the contrary, that's what excites me: because the example of sovereigns can infect their subjects. There are few people who reject their unjust decrees and think that even the kings of the earth are under the authority of the King of heaven, whose laws must be obeyed. Then, saying that the church cannot sin and be suspected of idolatry, he discusses in detail about icons, expressing among other things: “I dare to make an image of the invisible God, not as He exists in invisibility, but as He revealed to us,” and explains the places of the Old Testament, the meaning of the words "image" and "worship", cites the places of the Holy Fathers (Dionysius, Gregory of Nyssago, Basil the Great, etc.), and in conclusion says that "only ecumenical councils, and not kings, can supply definitions about matters of faith" . This was written even before the deposition of Herman, and then two more essays were written on the same subject. To the objection that the people idolize icons, John replies: "It is necessary to teach the illiterate people."

A rebellion broke out in the Cycladic Islands, suppressed by Leo. For the refusal of the "ecumenical teacher" (a priest who oversaw the course of educational affairs in the empire, who had 12 or 16 assistants) to declare in writing, with his employees, icon veneration as idolatry, the emperor ordered them to be burned along with the building where the state library, founded by Emperor Constantine, was located. Great.

In 730, an edict followed, according to which all icons were ordered to be taken out of the temples. Patriarch Herman, who refused to comply with this order, was deposed by the emperor in 733, and Anastasius was put in his place, obeying the order of Leo. The icons were taken out; the bishops who opposed this were deposed.

But icons could only be removed from churches within the Byzantine Empire. In Syria, which was under the rule of the Arabians, and in Rome, which almost did not recognize the power of the Byzantine emperor over itself, Leo could not force his edict to be carried out. The Eastern churches, under the rule of the Arabians, cut off communion with the Greek Church, and John of Damascus wrote two more epistles against the iconoclasts. Likewise, Pope Gregory III (731-741), who, like his predecessor, stood on the side of the iconodules, rebelled against the imperial edict. In 732, he convened a council in Rome, where he cursed the iconoclasts. Leo wanted to punish the pope, he sent a fleet to Italy, but since the latter was defeated by a storm, he limited himself only to taking the Illyrian district from the pope, adding it to the Patriarchate of Constantinople. In 741, Leo the Isaurian died, having achieved only that the icons were withdrawn from church use; for all his harshness, he could not withdraw them from domestic use.

After the death of Leo, icon veneration was restored for some time. Leo's son-in-law, Artabasdes, with the help of iconodules, occupied the imperial throne, in addition to Leo's son and heir Constantine Copronymus (called Copronymus or Cavallinus for his love of horses). Icons reappeared in churches, and open icon veneration began again. But in 743, Constantine Copronymus overthrew Artabasdus from the throne, and, like his father, began to persecute icon veneration, only with even greater perseverance and cruelty. Copronymus wanted solemnly, with observance of the law, to destroy icon veneration as a heresy, and for this, in 754, he convened a council in Constantinople, which he called ecumenical. There were 338 bishops at the council, but not a single patriarch. Here it was supposed that icon veneration is idolatry, that the only image of Christ the Savior is the Eucharist and the like. As evidence, the cathedral cited passages from St. The Scriptures, interpreting them one-sidedly and incorrectly, as well as from the ancient fathers, are either false, or distorted, or misinterpreted. In conclusion, the council anathematized all the defenders of icon veneration and icon worshipers, especially John of Damascus, and decided that whoever then preserves the icons and venerates them, he - if a clergyman - is subject to defrocking, if a layman or a monk - is excommunicated ecclesiastical and punished according to imperial laws. All the bishops agreed to the conciliar decisions - some out of conviction, others - and most - out of fear of the emperor. At the council, in place of the iconoclastic Patriarch Anasius, who had died before, Bishop Constantinople of Phrygia was appointed Patriarch of Constantinople, declaring himself to be especially hostile to icon veneration. The decisions of the council were carried out with unusual rigidity. Persecution extended even to domestic icon veneration. Only in secret places inaccessible to the police, the Orthodox could keep the icons. Not dwelling on icon veneration, Copronym went further; he wanted to destroy the veneration of the saints and their relics, the monastic life, considering all this to be superstition. Therefore, at his command, the relics of the saints were either burned or thrown into the sea; monasteries were turned into barracks or stables, the monks were expelled, and some of them, who openly condemned the actions of the emperor and defended icon veneration, were put to a painful death. The will of the emperor was carried out everywhere except Rome. While Constantine Coprinimos condemned icon veneration at his ecumenical council, the pope was carrying out a plan regarding the separation of Rome from the Byzantine Empire. The Exarchate of Ravenna, which belonged to the Greek Empire, was taken over by the Lombards (752). Pope Stephen III invited the Frankish king Pepin to help, who drove the Lombards away, and presented the lands taken from them to the apostolic throne, i.e. pope (755). Greek power in Italy then ended. Stephen, having become independent, did not hesitate to reject all the decisions of the iconoclastic council of 754.

"Konstantin Copronymus died in 755. He was succeeded by his son Leo Khazar (775-780), brought up in an iconoclastic spirit. According to his father's will, he had to act against icon veneration. But Leo was a man of weak character; he had a great influence his wife Irina, who secretly supported icon veneration.Under her patronage, exiled monks again began to appear in the cities and even in Constantipolis itself, episcopal chairs began to be replaced by secret adherents of icon veneration, etc. Only in 780, in connection with those found in the bedroom of Irina Leo began to suppress the awakening icon veneration with drastic measures, but died in the same year.Due to the infancy of his son Constantine the Porphyrogenic (780-802), Irina took control of the state.

Now she resolutely declared herself the defender of icon veneration. The monks freely occupied their monasteries, appeared on the streets, and aroused in the people the faded love for icons. The relics of the martyr Euphemia, thrown into the sea under Constantine Copronymus, were taken out of the water, and they began to pay due veneration to them. Patriarch Paul of Constantinople, who was among the enemies of icon veneration, in this turn of affairs, felt compelled to leave the cathedra and retire to a monastery. Instead of him, at the request of Irina, one secular person, Tarasius, an adherent of icon veneration, was appointed. Tarasius accepted the patriarchal throne in order to restore communion with the Roman and Eastern churches, which had ceased during iconoclastic times, and so that a new ecumenical council was convened to establish icon veneration. Indeed, with the consent of Irina, he wrote to Pope Adrian I about the proposed restoration of icon veneration and invited him to participate in the ecumenical council. Invitations were also sent to the Eastern Patriarchs.

In 786, finally, a cathedral was opened in Constantinople. The Pope sent legates; on behalf of the Eastern Patriarchs, two monks arrived as representatives. Many Greek bishops also gathered at the council. But the council did not take place this year. Most bishops were against icon veneration. They began to organize secret meetings and argue in the spirit of iconoclasm. In addition, the imperial bodyguards, which consisted of the old soldiers of Constantine Copronymus, did not want to allow the restoration of icon veneration. At one meeting of the cathedral, the iconoclastic bishops made a noise, while the bodyguards, meanwhile, went on a rampage in the courtyard of the building where the cathedral was held. Tarasy was forced to close the cathedral.

In the next 787, when Irina dismissed the iconoclastic troops from service in advance, the cathedral was quietly opened in Nicaea. It was the second Nicaea, the seventh Ecumenical Council. There were 367 fathers. Although there were iconoclastic bishops, there were fewer Orthodox ones. There were eight meetings of the council. First of all, Tarasy, as chairman, delivered his speech in favor of icon veneration, then Irina read the same speech. Orthodox bishops agreed with both. Tarasius suggested to the iconoclastic bishops that if they repent and accept icon veneration, they will be left in the rank of bishop.

VII Ecumenical Council. Miniature from Minology of Basil II, 985

As a result of such a proposal, the iconoclastic bishops also agreed to recognize iconoclasm and signed a renunciation of iconoclasm. Further, they read the message of Pope Adrian on icon veneration, cited evidence in favor of icon veneration from St. Scriptures, St. The traditions and writings of the Fathers of the Church analyzed the actions of the iconoclastic council of 754 and found it heretical.

Finally, anathematizing all the iconoclasts, the fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council drew up a definition of faith, in which, among other things, it is said: “We keep non-newly everything, written and without writing, established for us church traditions, of which one concerns icon painting ... we define:

“Like an image of an honest and life-giving cross, to place in the holy churches of God, on sacred vessels and clothes, on walls and boards, in houses and on paths, honest and holy icons of the Lord God and our Savior Jesus Christ and the Immaculate Lady of our holy Mother of God, also honest angels, and all the saints and reverend men.For when through the image on the icons the faces of the Savior, the Mother of God, etc. are visible, then those who look at them are prompted to remember and love their archetypes, and honor them with kisses and reverent worship not their own , according to our faith, worship of God, which befits the one Divine nature, but the veneration paid to the image of the honest and life-giving cross and the holy gospel and other shrines.

Seventh Ecumenical Council. Icon

In addition, the council decreed that all works written by heretics against icon veneration be presented to the Patriarch of Constantinople, and those who hide such works are appointed - clergymen - defrocking, laymen - excommunication from the Church. - The sessions of the council in Nicaea are over. The eighth and last meeting was in Constantinople, in the presence of Irina. Here the definitions of the cathedral were solemnly read and approved by the empress. According to the Council's definition, icon veneration was restored in all churches.

Nikolai Talberg

Quoted from:

History of the Christian Church. Part I. - M., 2008