The Seventh Ecumenical Council (Nicaea, 787)

From the 720s the Emperors Leo III and Constantine V persecuted the veneration of icons; the iconoclast council of Hieria (754) declared it idolatry. St John of Damascus and many monks and lay people defended the icons, and many suffered for it.

The Empress Irene, regent for the young Constantine VI, and Patriarch Tarasius convened a council in Constantinople in 786, but iconoclast soldiers broke it up. The Council met at Nicaea in 787; tradition counts 367 fathers (historians give about 350).

The Council defined that holy icons are to be given the veneration of honour, but not the worship (latreia) due to God alone; “the honour paid to the image passes to its prototype” (St Basil the Great). The icon bears witness to the reality of the Incarnation.

After a second period of iconoclasm (815–843) the Empress Theodora finally restored the veneration of icons in 843. The event is remembered on the first Sunday of Great Lent, the Sunday of the Triumph of Orthodoxy.