{"id":29079,"date":"2020-03-16T10:31:56","date_gmt":"2020-03-16T10:31:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/?p=29079"},"modified":"2020-03-16T10:40:02","modified_gmt":"2020-03-16T10:40:02","slug":"the-icon-part-two-iconoclasm-the-seventh-council-and-after-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/2020\/03\/the-icon-part-two-iconoclasm-the-seventh-council-and-after-that","title":{"rendered":"The Icon \u2013 Iconoclasm, the Seventh Council, and after that"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In the year 767 Stephen of Constantinople saw soldiers trampling an\u00a0\"\"icon. He objected and was told it was ok \u2013 it was only a picture. So he took a coin with the image of the Emperor and trampled it, explaining it was only a picture. We celebrate the feast of\u00a0Saint\u00a0Stephen the<\/em>\u00a0New Martyr<\/em>\u00a0every November 26. The Emperor didn\u2019t forbid images of himself, only of Christ and the saints. You get the picture?<\/p>\n

The Iconoclastic Controversy<\/h3>\n

No Ecumenical Council had dealt specifically with the theology of images \u2013 until the challenge of the Iconoclastic movement in the 8th century.<\/p>\n

Iconoclast means \u201cicon smasher\u201d.\u00a0<\/span>In the year 726 Emperor Leo III the Isaurian began a systematic attack on the holy icons.\u00a0<\/span>Icons were removed from public\u00a0\"\"places, taken out of churches and homes, mutilated, burned, destroyed in various ways \u2013 except for a few which people managed to hide away, or were preserved outside the Empire.\u00a0Some<\/span>\u00a0in the Church went along with the Emperor, especially clergy who knew which side their bread was buttered on.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What caused the Iconoclastic movement?\u00a0I<\/span>t\u2019s not clear. Just as today, political or religious movements suddenly sweep the country or the world, many of them making radical changes. But why? Often it\u2019s hard to say.<\/p>\n

Iconoclasts quoted the Second Commandment (see last week), but the Iconoclastic emperors, like most politicians, knew little about religion. Likely the chief influence was political, not theological. The Empire was then threatened by iconoclast Muslims who were winning battle after battle. The Muslim Caliph Yezid had just ordered the removal of all icons and images within his dominions, so Emperor Leo came to the \u201cobvious\u201d conclusion\u2026<\/p>\n

I<\/span>conoclasm was not a popular movement.\u00a0As I said last week,<\/span>\u00a0imagine if the government wanted to destroy that icon which had long been passed down through your family * or the icon in church that has spoken so deeply to you.<\/p>\n

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  • \u00a0as, believe it or not, the American military were doing in the Aleutian Islands as late as World War II. Was it Ronald Reagan who finally apologized for that?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Those who understood Orthodox theology\u00a0resisted. They saw that this was not just an argument about pictures but about the very nature of Christianity. Was \u201cthe Word made flesh\u201d? Did he take on an image?\u00a0Have we \u201cbeheld his glory\u201d?\u00a0<\/span>Can he be pictured? Whether unintentionally or intentionally, the Iconoclasts were ultimately denying the Incarnation, the humanity of Christ.\u00a0<\/span>Monks and theologians who opposed Iconoclasm were jailed, exiled and some martyred.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    In the end Iconoclasm became a war between Church and state. In the Byzantine synthesis bishops were to tend to the Faith, emperors to secular affairs. Emperor Justinian had defended Orthodoxy, even against his Empress! and that was fine \u2013 but Iconoclastic emperors were reaching beyond their proper sphere of influence.<\/p>\n

    Defenders of the Holy Icons<\/h3>\n

    \"\"Iconoclasm caused the Church\u2019s theology of icons finally to be clearly thought through and spelled out. Saint Theodore of Studion Monastery in Constantinople got himself into much trouble because writings things like\u00a0this: \u201cBecause man is in the image and likeness of God, there is something divine about the act of painting an icon.\u201d\u00a0He also drew out the moral implications \u2013 about\u00a0a\u00a0thousand years before emancipation caught on in the world: \u201cYou shalt possess no slave, neither for domestic service nor for the labor of the fields, for man is made in the image of God.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

    The most eloquent defender of icons was John Mansour, later known as Saint John of\u00a0\"\"Damascus, who wrote from the safety of Muslim territory (note the turban), where the emperors couldn\u2019t get him. A multi-talented man, John worked at first as secretary to the Caliph of Damascus who protected him! In one of his\u00a0Apologetic Treatises against those Decrying the Holy Images\u00a0<\/i>Saint\u00a0John\u00a0wrote: \u201cOf old the incorporeal and invisible God was not depicted at all, but now, since God has appeared in the flesh and dwelt among men, I make an icon of God since he has become visible. I do not venerate matter but I venerate the Creator of matter, who for my sake has become material, who has been pleased to dwell in matter and has through matter effected my salvation. I shall not cease to honor matter, for it was through matter that my salvation came to pass.\u00a0<\/span>Do not insult matter, for it is not without honor; nothing is\u00a0without honor that God has made.\u201d<\/p>\n

    The Seventh Ecumenical Council<\/h3>\n

    After 54 years of imperial persecution, in the year 780 the Empress Irene called a Council in Nicaea to deal with the issue \u2013 which came to be called the Seventh Ecumenical Council.<\/p>\n

    The Fathers made a distinction between veneration (\u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c3\u03ba\u03cd\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2\/prosKINisis) and worship (\u03bb\u03b1\u03c1\u03b9\u03af\u03b1\/ laTREIa). We worship God.\u00a0<\/span>We venerate saints and holy objects: icons, the Cross, the Gospel book, and all\u00a0\"\"worthy people.<\/p>\n

    Regarding icons the Fathers established these principles:<\/p>\n

    1\u00a0<\/b>Icons are not idols, because\u00a0<\/span>we do not worship them. The power is not in the matter but in who icons point to, in who lies behind the images. Surely this is obvious. Who has ever worshiped wood or paint? I have a picture of my parents standing in honor on my \u00a0dresser, not because of the paper and ink but because of my parents. Saint Basil the Great had written long before: \u201cThe honor given to the image passes on to the prototype that lies behind it\u201d.<\/p>\n

    Saint Leontios of Jerusalem (d. 1261) would later write: \u201cWe do not bow down to the nature of wood, but we revere and bow down to him who was crucified on the Cross\u2026. When the two beams of the Cross are joined together I adore the figure because of Christ who was crucified on the Cross, but if the beams are separated, I throw them away and burn them.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Furthermore icons are not false images as forbidden by the Second Commandment. Icons are\u00a0true images<\/em>\u00a0of Christ and the saints.\u00a0<\/span>They protect the Faith and worship of the true God.<\/p>\n

    2\u00a0<\/strong>The doctrinal significance of icons is that they proclaim the Incarnation. Therefore the Fathers of the Council decreed that not only are icons permissible but that it is\u00a0essential<\/em>\u00a0to have them \u2013 for to reject them is to deny Christ\u2019s\u00a0<\/span>humanity, his materiality.<\/p>\n

    \"\"3<\/strong>\u00a0Therefore the Fathers continued, \u201cAs the sacred and life-giving Cross is everywhere set up as a symbol, so also should the images of Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, the holy angels, as well as those of the saints and other pious and holy men * be \u00a0exhibited on the walls of churches, in homes and in all conspicuous places, by the roadside and everywhere\u201d to be revered by all who see them.\u00a0Left: roadside\u00a0shrine in Greece<\/i><\/p>\n