The Second Council in Nicea ended on this day in 787. On September 13, I shared a letter from St. John of Shanghai in which he wrote that, despite Iconoclasm, the Church in Byzantium did not cease to remain the Church. Iconoclasm (lit. "the breaking of images") began in 720 and was proclaimed church doctrine at the self-proclaimed ‘ecumenical’ council in Hieria in 754. This decision isolated the Byzantine Church from the other ancient sees and had political consequences. Irene, the wife of the late Byzantine emperor Leo IV the Khazar, was originally from an icon-venerating family in Athens. Although, at the time of their marriage, she had given an oath not to practice icon veneration, having become regent for their son Constantine VI after Leo died in 780, Irene began to protect Orthodox monks and to restore eikonodoulia. Eikonomachia (or iκonoborchestvo in Slavonic; lit. “struggle against icons”) was tied to successful Byzantine soldier-emperors, like Constantine V "the Isaurian." Understandably, Irene had to deal with strong opposition from influential military circles. Constantine V reformed the army and created a new type of professional regiment known as the tagma. Only when Irene sent tagmata battalions out of the capital under the pretext of an Arab invasion and replaced them with regular troops from Thrace was she finally able to assemble a Council, which, for the sake of security, took place in Nicea (the capital of the theme of Opsikion, which was opposed to Constantine V). The council had eight meetings in Nicea from September 24 to October 23. And then, an extra meeting on October 23 took place in Mangaura Palace in Constantinople. It was attended by Patriarch Tarasios and bishops, along with representatives of monastic circles from Byzantium and Palestine. There were Papal legates and representatives of all three other patriarchates. Empress Irene and her son Constantine VI participated in the Council’s last session. Besides the Orthodox expression of the differences between worship (latreia) and veneration (proskynesis), the council adopted 22 canons that reiterated the need for fidelity to previous canons, prohibited imperial involvement in nominations for church offices, and, among other things, focused on bringing monks back into subordination to their bishops. Source: "Vselenskii VII Sobor" [Seventh Ecumenical Council], Pravoslavnaia Entsiklopedia |
