The Church
of the Ecumenical Councils
(323-843)
The Establishment
of the Imperial Church | Fighting
against the heresies
1. Nicaea - The Defeat of Arianism
2. Constantinople - The Teaching
upon the Holy Spirit
3. Ephesus - The Victory over Nestorianism
4. Chalcedon - The Triumph of the Orthodox
Christology
5 & 6. Constantinople - Chalcedon
Confirmed - The Victory over Monotheletism | The
Dispute over the Holy Icons
7. Nicea - The Victory of the Iconophiles and
the Final Triumph of Orthodoxy
The Establishment of the Imperial Church
In 312 an event occurred which utterly transformed the outward
situation of the Church. As he was riding through France with
his army, the Emperor Constantine looked up into the sky and
saw a cross of light in front of the sun. With the cross there
was an inscription: In this sign conquer. As a result of this
vision, Constantine became the first Roman Emperor to embrace
the Christian faith. On that day in France a train of events
was set in motion which brought the first main period of Church
history to an end, and which led to the creation of the Christian
Empire of Byzantium.
Constantine stands at a watershed in the history of the Church.
With his conversion, the age of the martyrs and the persecutions
drew to an end, and the Church of the Catacombs became the Church
of the Empire. The first great effect of Constantine's vision
was the so-called 'Edict' of Milan, which he and his fellow Emperor
Licinius issued in 313 proclaiming the official toleration of
the Christian faith. And though at first Constantine granted
no more than toleration, he soon made it clear that he intended
to favour Christianity above all the other tolerated religions
in the Roman Empire. Theodosius, within fifty years of Constantine's
death, had carried this policy through to its conclusion: by
his legislation he made Christianity not merely the most highly
favoured but the only recognized religion of the Empire. The
Church was now established. 'You are not allowed to exist,' the
Roman authorities had once said to the Christians. Now it was
the turn of paganism to be suppressed.
Constantine's vision of the Cross led also, in his lifetime,
to two further consequences, equally momentous for the later
development of Christendom. First, in 324 he decided to move
the capital of the Roman Empire eastward from Italy to the shores
of the Bosphorus. Here, on the site of the Greek city of Byzantium,
he built a new capital, which he named after himself, 'Constantinoupolis'.
The motives for this move were in part economic and political,
but they were also religious: the Old Rome was too deeply stained
with pagan associations to form the centre of the Christian Empire
which he had in mind. In the New Rome things were to be different:
after the solemn inauguration of the city in 330, he laid down
that at Constantinople no pagan rites should ever be performed.
Constantine's new capital has exercised a decisive influence
upon the development of Orthodox history.
Secondly, Constantine summoned the first General or Ecumenical
Council of the Christian Church at Nicaea in 323. If the Roman
Empire was to be a Christian Empire, then Constantine wished
to see it firmly based upon the one Orthodox faith. It was the
duty of the Nicene Council to elaborate the content of that faith.
Nothing could have symbolized more clearly the new relation between
Church and State than the outward circumstances of the gathering
at Nicaea. The Emperor himself presided, 'like some heavenly
messenger of God', as one of those present, Eusebius, Bishop
of Caesarea, expressed it. At the conclusion of the council the
bishops dined with the Emperor. 'The circumstances of the banquet,'
wrote Eusebius (who was inclined to be impressed by such things),
'were splendid beyond description. Detachments of the bodyguard
and other troops surrounded the entrance of the palace with drawn
swords, and through the midst of these the men of God proceeded
without fear into the innermost of the imperial apartments. Some
were the Emperor's own companions at table, others reclined on
couches ranged on either side. One might have thought it was
a picture of Christ's kingdom, and a dream rather than reality."
Matters had certainly changed since the time when Nero employed
Christians as living torches to illuminate his gardens at night.
Nicaea was the first of seven general councils; and these, like
the city of Constantine, occupy a central position in the history
of Orthodoxy.
The three events - the Edict of Milan, the foundation of Constantinople
and the Council of Nicaea - mark the Church's coming of age.
THE FIRST SIX COUNCILS (325-681)
Fighting
against the heresies
The life of the Church in the earlier Byzantine period is
dominated by the seven general councils. These councils fulfilled
a double task. First, they clarified and articulated the visible
organization of the Church, crystallizing the position of the
five great sees or Patriarchates, as they came to be known. Secondly,
and more important, the councils defined once and for all the
Church's teaching upon the fundamental doctrines of the Christian
faith - the Trinity and the Incarnation. All Christians agree
in regarding these things as 'mysteries' which lie beyond human
understanding and language. The bishops, when they drew up definitions
at the councils, did not imagine that they had explained the
mystery; they merely sought to exclude certain false ways of
speaking and thinking about it. To prevent people from deviating
into error and heresy, they drew a fence around the mystery;
that was all.
The discussions at the councils at times sound abstract and remote,
yet they were inspired by a very practical purpose: human salvation.
Humanity, so the New Testament teaches, is separated from God
by sin, and cannot through its own efforts break down the wall
of separation which its sinfulness has created. God has therefore
taken the initiative: He has become man, has been crucified,
and has risen again from the dead, thereby delivering humanity
from the bondage of sin and death. This is the central message
of the Christian faith, and it is this message of redemption
that the councils were concerned to safeguard. Heresies were
dangerous and required condemnation, because they impaired the
teaching of the New Testament, setting up a barrier between humans
and God, and so making it impossible for humans to attain full
salvation.
Saint Paul expressed this message of redemption in terms of sharing.
Christ shared our poverty that we might share the riches of His
divinity: 'Our Lord Jesus Christ, though He was rich, yet for
your sake became poor, that you through His poverty might become
rich' (2 Corinthians viii, 9). In St John's Gospel the same idea
is found in a slightly different form. Christ states that He
has given His disciples a share in the divine glory, and He prays
that they may achieve union with God: 'The glory which You, Father,
gave Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We
are one; I in them, and You in Me that they may be perfectly
one' (John xvii, 22-3 The Greek Fathers took these and similar
texts in their literal sense, and dared to speak of humanity's
'deification' (in Greek, theosis). If humans are to share in
God's glory, they argued, if they are to be 'perfectly one' with
God, this means in effect that humans must be 'deified': they
are called to become by grace what God is by nature. Accordingly
St Athanasius summed up the purpose of the Incarnation by saying,
'God became human that we might be made god."
Now if this 'being made god', this theosis, is to be possible,
Christ the Saviour must be both fully human and fully God. No
one less than God can save humanity; therefore if Christ is to
save, He must be God. But only if He is truly human, as we are,
can we humans participate in what He has done for us. A bridge
is formed between God and humanity by the Incarnate Christ who
is divine and human at once. 'Hereafter you shall see the heaven
open,' our Lord promised, 'and the angels of God ascending and
descending upon the Son of Man' (John i, 51). Not only angels
use that ladder, but the human race.
Christ must be fully God and fully human. Each heresy in turn
undermined some part of this vital affirmation. Either Christ
was made less than God (Arianism); or His humanity was so divided
from His Godhead that He became two persons instead of one (Nestorianism);
or He w as not presented as truly human (Monophysitism, Monothelitism).
Each council defended this affirmation. The first two, held in
the fourth century, concentrated upon the earlier part (that
Christ must be fully God) and formulated the doctrine of the
Trinity. The next four, during the fifth, sixth and seventh centuries,
turned to the second part (the fullness of Christ's humanity)
and also sought to explain how humanity and Godhead could be
united in a single person. The seventh council, in defence of
the Holy Icons, seems at first to stand somewhat apart, but like
the first six it was ultimately concerned with the Incarnation
and with human salvation.
1. Nicaea -
The Defeat of Arianism.................................................(Documents)
The main work of the Council of Nicaea in 323 was the condemnation
of Arianism. Arius, a priest in Alexandria, maintained that the
Son was inferior to the Father, and, in drawing a dividing line
between God and creation, he placed the Son among created things:
a superior creature, it is true, but a creature none the less.
His motive, no doubt, was to protect the uniqueness and the transcendence
of God, but the effect of his teaching, in making Christ less
than God, was to render impossible our human deification. Only
if Christ is truly God, the council answered, can He unite us
to God, for none but God Himself can open to humans the way of
union. Christ is 'one in essence' (homoousios) with the Father.
He is no demigod or superior creature, but God in the same sense
that the Father is God: 'true God from true God,' the council
proclaimed in the Creed which it drew up, 'begotten not made,
one in essence with the Father'.
The Council of Nicaea dealt also with the visible organization
of the Church. It singled out for mention three great centres:
Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch (Canon VI) It also laid down that
the see of Jerusalem while remaining subject to the Metropolitan
of Caesarea, should be given the next place in honour after these
three (Canon VII) Constantinople naturally was not mentioned,
since it was not officially inaugurated as the new capital until
five years later; it continued to be subject, as before, to the
Metropolitan of Heraclea.
Link: http://ccel.wheaton.edu/fathers/NPNF2-14/1nice/index.htm
2.
Constantinople - The Teaching upon the Holy Spirit..................
(Documents)
The work of Nicaea was taken up by the second Ecumenical Council,
held at Constantinople in 381. This council expanded and adapted
the Nicene Creed, developing in particular the teaching upon
the Holy Spirit, whom it affirmed to be God even as the Father
and Son are God: 'who proceeds from the Father, who with the
Father and the Son together is worshipped and together glorified'.
The council also altered the provisions of the Sixth Canon of
Nicaea. The position of Constantinople, now the capital of the
Empire, could no longer be ignored, and it was assigned the second
place, after Rome and above Alexandria. 'The Bishop of Constantinople
shall have the prerogatives of honour after the Bishop of Rome,
because Constantinople is New Rome' (Canon III).
Behind the definitions of the councils lay the work of theologians,
who gave precision to the words which the councils employed.
It was the supreme achievement of St Athanasius of Alexandria
to draw out the full implications of the key word in the Nicene
Creed: homoousios, one in essence or substance, consubstantial.
Complementary to his work was that of the three Cappadocian Fathers,
Saints Gregory of Nazianzus, known in the Orthodox Church as
Gregory the Theologian (?329-?90 Basil the Great (?330-79), and
his younger brother Gregory of Nyssa (died 394). While Athanasius
emphasized the unity of God- Father and Son are one in essence
(ousia) the Cappadocians stressed God's threeness: Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit are three persons (hypostasis). Preserving a
delicate balance between the threeness and the oneness in God,
they gave full meaning to the classic summary of Trinitarian
doctrine, three persons in one essence. Never before or since
has the Church possessed four theologians of such stature within
a single generation.
After 381 Arianism quickly ceased to be a living issue, except
in certain parts of western Europe. The controversial aspect
of the council's work lay in its third Canon, which was resented
alike by Rome and by Alexandria. Old Rome wondered where the
claims of New Rome would end: might not Constantinople before
long claim first place? Rome chose therefore to ignore the offending
Canon, and not until the Lateran Council (1215) did the Pope
formally recognize Constantinople's claim to second place. (Constantinople
was at that time in the hands of the Crusaders and under the
rule of a Latin Patriarch.) But the Canon was equally a challenge
to Alexandria, which hitherto had occupied the first place in
the east. The next seventy years witnessed a sharp conflict between
Constantinople and Alexandria, in which for a time the victory
went to the latter. The first major Alexandrian success was at
the Synod of the Oak, when Theophilus of Alexandria secured the
deposition and exile of the Bishop of Constantinople, St John
Chrysostom, 'John of the Golden Mouth' (?334-407). A fluent and
eloquent preacher- his sermons must often have lasted for an
hour or more - John expressed in popular form the theological
ideas put forward by Athanasius and the Cappadocians. A man of
strict and austere life, he was inspired by a deep compassion
for the poor and by a burning zeal for social righteousness.
Of all the Fathers he is perhaps the best loved in the Orthodox
Church, and the one whose works are most widely read.
3. Ephesus
- The Victory over Nestorianism...................................(Documents) (Letters to Nestorius)
Alexandria's second major success was won by the nephew and
successor of Theophilus, St Cyril of Alexandria (died 444), who
brought about the fall of another Bishop of Constantinople, Nestorius,
at the third General Council, held in Ephesus (431). But at Ephesus
there was more at stake than the rivalry of two great sees. Doctrinal
issues, quiescent since 381, once more emerged, centring now
not on the Trinity but on the Person of Christ. Cyril and Nestorius
agreed that Christ was fully God, one of the Trinity, but they
diverged in their descriptions of His humanity and in their method
of explaining the union of the divine and the human in a single
person. They represented different traditions or schools of theology.
Nestorius, brought up in the school of Antioch, upheld the integrity
of Christ's humanity, but distinguished so emphatically between
the humanity and the Godhead that he seemed in danger of ending,
not with one person, but with two persons coexisting in the same
body. Cyril, the protagonist of the opposite tradition of Alexandria,
started from the unity of Christ's person rather than the diversity
of His humanity and Godhead, but spoke about Christ's humanity
less vividly than the Antiochenes. Either approach, if pressed
too far, could lead to heresy, but the Church had need of both
in order to form a balanced picture of the whole Christ. It was
a tragedy for Christendom that the two schools, instead of balancing
one another, entered into conflict.
Nestorius precipitated the controversy by declining to call the
Virgin Mary 'Mother of God' (Theotokos). This title was already
accepted in popular devotion, but it seemed to Nestorius to imply
a confusion of Christ's humanity and His Godhead. Mary, he argued
- and here his Antiochene 'separatism' is evident - is only to
be called 'Mother of Man' or at the most 'Mother of Christ',
since she is mother only of Christ's humanity, not of His divinity.
Cyril, supported by the council, answered with the text 'The
Word was made flesh' (John i, T4): Mary is God's mother, for
'she bore the Word of God made flesh'.' What Mary bore was not
a man loosely united to God, but a single and undivided person,
who is God and man at once. The name Theotokos safeguards the
unity of Christ's person: to deny her this title is to separate
the Incarnate Christ into two, breaking down the bridge between
God and humanity and erecting within Christ's person a middle
wall of partition. Thus we can see that not only titles of devotion
were involved at Ephesus, but the very message of salvation.
The same primacy that the word homoousios occupies in the doctrine
of the Trinity, the word Theotokos holds in the doctrine of the
Incarnation.
Alexandria won another victory at a second council held in Ephesus
in 449, but this gathering- so it was felt by a large part of
the Christian world - pushed the Alexandrian position too far.
Dioscorus of Alexandria, Cyril's successor, insisted that there
is in Christ only one nature (physis); the Saviour is from two
natures, but after His Incarnation there is only 'one incarnate
nature of God the Word'. This is the position commonly termed
'Monophysite'. It is true that Cyril himself had used such language,
but Dioscorus omitted the balancing statements that Cyril had
made in 433 as a concession to the Antiochenes. To many it seemed
that Dioscorus was denying the integrity of Christ's humanity,
although this is almost certainly an unjust interpretation of
his standpoint.
4. Chalcedon
- The Triumph of the Orthodox Christology..............(Documents)
(Tomos of Leo)
Only two years later, in 451, the Emperor Marcian summoned
to Chalcedon a fresh gathering of bishops, which the Church of
Byzantium and the west regarded as the fourth general council.
The pendulum now swung back in an Antiochene direction. The council,
rejecting the Monophysite position of Dioscorus, proclaimed that,
while Christ is a single, undivided person, He is not only from
two natures but in two natures. The bishops acclaimed the Tome
of St Leo the Great, Pope of Rome (died 46i), in which the distinction
between the two natures is clearly stated, although the unity
of Christ's person is also emphasized. In their proclamation
of faith they stated their belief in 'one and the same Son, perfect
in Godhead and perfect in humanity, truly God and truly human
... acknowledged in two natures unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly,
inseparably; the difference between the natures is in no way
removed because of the union, but rather the peculiar property
of each nature is preserved, and both combine in one person and
in one hypostasis'. The Definition of Chalcedon, we may note,
is aimed not only at the Monophysites ('in two natures, unconfusedly,
unchangeably'), but also at the followers of Nestorius ('one
and the same Son...indivisibly, inseparably').
But Chalcedon was more than a defeat for Alexandrian theology:
it was a defeat for Alexandrian claims to rule supreme in the
east. Canon XXIII of Chalcedon confirmed Canon III of Constantinople,
assigning to New Rome the place next in honour after Old Rome.
Leo repudiated this Canon, but the east has ever since recognized
its validity. The council also freed Jerusalem from the jurisdiction
of Caesarea and gave it the fifth place among the great sees.
The system later known among Orthodox as the Pentarchy was now
complete, whereby five great sees in the Church were held in
particular honour, and a settled order of precedence was established
among them: in order of rank, Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria,
Antioch, Jerusalem. A11 five claimed Apostolic foundation. The
first four were the most important cities in the Roman Empire;
the fifth was added because it was the place where Christ had
suffered on the Cross and risen from the dead. The bishop in
each of these cities received the title Patriarch. The five Patriarchates
between them divided into spheres of jurisdiction the whole of
the known world, apart from Cyprus, which was granted independence
by the Council of Ephesus and has remained self-governing ever
since.
When speaking of the Orthodox conception of the Pentarchy there
are two possible misunderstandings which must be avoided. First,
the system of Patriarchs and Metropolitans is a matter of ecclesiastical
organization. But if we look at the Church from the viewpoint
not of ecclesiastical order but of divine right, then we must
say that all bishops are essentially equal, however humble or
exalted the city over which each presides. All bishops share
equally in the apostolic succession, all have the same sacramental
powers, all are divinely appointed teachers of the faith. If
a dispute about doctrine arises, it is not enough for the Patriarchs
to express their opinion: every diocesan bishop has the right
to attend a general council, to speak, and to cast his vote.
The system of the Pentarchy does not impair the essential equality
of all bishops, nor does it deprive each local community of the
importance which Ignatius assigned to it.
In the second place, Orthodox believe that among the five Patriarchs
a special place belongs to the Pope. The Orthodox Church does
not accept the doctrine of Papal authority set forth in the decrees
of the Vatican Council of 870, and taught today in the Roman
Catholic Church; but at the same time Orthodoxy does not deny
to the Holy and Apostolic See of Rome a primacy of honour, together
with the right (under certain conditions) to hear appeals from
all parts of Christendom. Note that we have used the word 'primacy',
not 'supremacy'. Orthodox regard the Pope as the bishop 'who
presides in love', to adapt a phrase of St Ignatius: Rome's mistake
- so Orthodox believe - has been to turn this primacy or 'presidency
of love' into a supremacy of external power and jurisdiction.
This primacy which Rome enjoys takes its origin from three factors.
First, Rome was the city where St Peter and St Paul were martyred,
and where Peter was bishop. The Orthodox Church acknowledges
Peter as the first among the Apostles: it does not forget the
celebrated 'Petrine texts' in the Gospels (Matthew xvi 18,19;
Luke xxii, 32; John xxi, 15-17) - although Orthodox theologians
do not understand these texts in quite the same way as modern
Roman Catholic commentators. And while many Orthodox theologians
would say that not only the Bishop of Rome but all bishops are
successors of Peter, yet most of them at the same time admit
that the Bishop of Rome is Peter's successor in a special sense.
Secondly, the see of Rome also owed its primacy to the position
occupied by the city of Rome in the Empire: she was the capital,
the chief city of the ancient world, and such in some measure
she continued to be even after the foundation of Constantinople.
Thirdly, although there were occasions when Popes fell into heresy,
on the whole during the first eight centuries of the Church's
history the Roman see was noted for the purity of its faith:
other Patriarchates wavered during the great doctrinal disputes,
but Rome for the most part stood firm. When hard pressed in the
struggle against heretics, people felt that they could turn with
confidence to the Pope. Not only the Bishop of Rome, but every
bishop, is appointed by God to be a teacher of the faith; yet
because the see of Rome had in practice taught the faith with
an outstanding loyalty to the truth, it was above all to Rome
that everyone appealed for guidance in the early centuries of
the Church.
But as with Patriarchs, so with the Pope: the primacy assigned
to Rome does not overthrow the essential equality of all bishops.
The Pope is the first bishop in the Church - but he is the first
among equals.
Ephesus and Chalcedon were a rock of Orthodoxy, but they were
also a grave rock of offence. The Arians had been gradually reconciled
and formed no lasting schism. But to this day there exist Christians
belonging to the Church of the East (frequently, although misleadingly,
called 'Nestorians') who cannot accept the decisions of Ephesus,
and who consider it incorrect to call the Virgin Mary Theotokos;
and to this day there also exist Non-Chalcedonians who follow
the Monophysite teaching of Dioscorus, and who reject the Chalcedonian
Definition and the Tome of Leo. The Church of the East lay almost
entirely outside the Byzantine Empire, and little more is heard
of it in Byzantine history. But large numbers of Non-Chalcedonians,
particularly in Egypt and Syria, were subjects of the Emperor,
and repeated though unsuccessful efforts were made to bring them
back into communion with the Byzantine Church. As so often, theological
differences were made more bitter by cultural and national tension.
Egypt and Syria, both predominantly non-Greek in language and
background, resented the power of Greek Constantinople, alike
in religious and in political matters. Thus ecclesiastical schism
was reinforced by political separatism. Had it not been for these
nontheological factors, the two sides might perhaps have reached
a theological understanding after Chalcedon. Many modern scholars
are inclined to think that the difference between 'Non-Chalcedonians'
and 'Chalcedonians' was basically one of terminology, not of
theology. The two parties understood the word 'nature' (physis)
in different ways, but both were concerned to affirm the same
basic truth: that Christ the Saviour is fully divine and fully
human, and yet He is one and not two.
5 &
6. Constantinople - Chalcedon Confirmed - The Victory over Monotheletism.........................................................(Documents 5th) (Documents 6th)
The Definition of Chalcedon was supplemented by two later
councils, both held at Constantinople. The fifth Ecumenical Council
(553) reinterpreted the decrees of Chalcedon from an Alexandrian
point of view, and-sought to explain, in more constructive terms
than Chalcedon had used, how the two natures of Christ unite
to form a single person. The sixth Ecumenical Council (680-81)
condemned the heresy of the Monothelites, who argued that although
Christ has two natures, yet since He is a single person, He has
only one will. The Council replied that if He has two natures,
then He must also have two wills. The Monothelites, it was felt,
impaired the fullness of Christ's humanity, since human nature
without a human will would be incomplete, a mere abstraction.
Since Christ is true man as well as true God, He must have a
human as well as a divine will.
During the fifty years before the meeting of the sixth Council,
Byzantium was faced with a sudden and alarming development: the
rise of Islam. The most striking fact about Muslim expansion
was its speed. When the Prophet died in 632 his authority scarcely
extended beyond the Hejaz. But within fifteen years his Arab
followers had taken Syria, Palestine, and
Egypt; within fifty they were at the walls of Constantinople
and almost captured the city; within a hundred they had swept
across North Africa, advanced through Spain, and forced western
Europe to fight for its life at the Battle of Poitiers. The Arab
inasions have been called 'a centrifugal explosion, driving in
every direction small bodies of mounted raiders in quest of food,
plunder, and conquest. The old empires were in no state to resist
them." Christendom survived, but only with difficulty. The
Byzantines lost their eastern possessions, and the three Patriarchates
of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem passed under infidel control;
within the Christian Empire of the East, the Patriarchate of
Constantinople was now without rival. Henceforward Byzantium
was never free for very long from Muslim attacks, and although
it held out for eight centuries more, yet in the end it succumbed.
The
Dispute over the Holy Icons
Disputes concerning the Person of Christ did not cease with
the council of 681, but were extended in a different form into
the eighth and ninth centuries. The struggle centred on the Holy
Icons, the pictures of Christ, the Mother of God, and the saints,
which were kept and venerated both in churches and in private
homes. The Iconoclasts or icon-smashers, suspicious of any religious
art which represented human beings or God, demanded the destruction
of icons; the opposite party, the Iconodules or venerators of
icons, vigorously defended the place of icons in the life of
the Church. The struggle was not merely a confiict between two
conceptions of Christian art. Deeper issues were involved: the
character of Christ's human nature, the Christian attitude towards
matter, the true meaning of Christian redemption.
The Iconoclasts may have been influenced from the outside by
Jewish and Muslim ideas, and it is significant that three years
before the first outbreak of Iconoclasm in the Byzantine Empire,
the Muslim Caliph Yezid ordered the removal of all icons within
his dominions. But Iconoclasm was not simply imported from outside;
within Christianity itself there had always existed a 'puritan'
outlook, which condemned icons because it saw in all images a
latent idolatry. When the Isaurian Emperors attacked icons, they
found plenty of support inside the Church.
The Iconoclast controversy, which lasted some Leo years, falls
into two phases. The first period opened in 726 when Leo 111
began his attack on icons, and ended in 780 when the Empress
Irene suspended the persecution. The Iconodule position was upheld
by the seventh and last Ecumenical Council (787), which met,
as the first had done, at Nicaea. Icons, the council proclaimed,
are to be kept in churches and honoured with the same relative
veneration as is shown to other material symbols, such as the
'precious and life-giving Cross' and the Book of Gospels. A new
attack on icons, started by Leo V the Armenian in 815, continued
until 843 when the icons were again reinstated, this time permanently,
by another Empress, Theodora. The final victory of the Holy Images
in 843 is known as 'the Triumph of Orthodoxy', and is commemorated
in a special service celebrated on 'Orthodoxy Sunday', the first
Sunday in Lent. The chief champion of the icons in the first
period was St John of Damascus (?675-749), in the second St Theodore
of Stoudios (759-826). John was able to work the more freely
because he dwelt in Muslim territory, out of reach of the Byzantine
government. It was not the last time that Islam acted unintentionally
as the protector of Orthodoxy.
One of the distinctive features of Orthodoxy is the place which
it assigns to icons. An Orthodox church today is filled with
them: dividing the sanctuary from the body of the building there
is a solid screen, the iconostasis, entirely covered with icons,
while other icons are placed in special shrines around the church;
and perhaps the walls are covered with icons in fresco or mosaic.
An Orthodox prostrates himself before these icons, he kisses
them and burns candles in front of them; they are censed by the
priest and carried in procession. What do these gestures and
actions mean? What do icons signify, and why did John of Damascus
and others regard them as important?
We shall consider first the charge of idolatry, which the Iconoclasts
brought against the Iconodules; then the positive value of icons
as a means of instruction; and finally their doctrinal importance.
(1) The question of idolatry. When an Orthodox kisses an icon
or prostrates himself before it, he is not guilty of idolatry.
The icon is not an idol but a symbol; the veneration shown to
images is directed, not towards stone, wood, and paint, but towards
the person depicted. This had been pointed out some time before
the Iconoclast controversy by Leontius of Neapolis (died about
650): We do not make obeisance to the nature of wood, but we
revere and do obeisance to Him who was crucified on the Cross
... 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.'
Because icons are only symbols, Orthodox do not worship them,
but reverence or venerate them. John of Damascus carefully distinguished
between the relative honour of veneration shown to material symbols,
and the worship due to God alone.
(2) Icons as part of the Church's teaching. Icons, said Leontius,
are 'opened books to remind us of God'; they are one of the means
which the Church employs in order to teach the faith. He who
lacks learning or leisure to study works of theology has only
to enter a church to see unfolded before him on the walls all
the mysteries of the Christian religion. If a pagan asks you
to show him your faith, said the Iconodules, take him into church
and place him before the icons. In this way icons form a part
of Holy Tradition.
(3) The doctrinal significance of icons. Here we come to the
real heart of the Iconoclast dispute. Granted that icons are
not idols; granted that they are useful for instruction; but
are they not only permissible but necessary? Is it essential
to have icons? The Iconodules held that it is, because icons
safeguard a full and proper doctrine of the Incarnation. Iconoclasts
and Iconodules agreed that God cannot be represented in His eternal
nature: 'no one has seen God at any time' (John i, 18). But,
the Iconodules continued, the Incarnation has made a representational
religious art possible: God can be depicted because He became
human and took flesh. Material images, argued John of Damascus,
can be made of Him who took a material body:
Of old God the incorporeal and uncircumscribed was not depicted
at all. But now that God has appeared in the flesh and lived
among humans, I make an image of the God who can be seen. I do
not worship matter but I worship the' Creator of matter, who
for my sake became material and deigned to dwell in matter, who
through matter effected my salvation. I will not cease from worshipping
the matter through which my salvation has been effected.'
The Iconoclasts, by repudiating all representations of God, failed
to take full account of the Incarnation. They fell, as so many
puritans have done, into a kind of dualism. Regarding matter
as a defilement, they wanted a religion freed from all contact
with what is material; for they thought that what is spiritual
must be non-material. But this is to betray the Incarnation,
by allowing no place to Christ's humanity, to His body; it is
to forget that our body as well as our soul must be saved and
transfigured. The Iconoclast controversy is thus closely linked
to the earlier disputes about Christ's person. It was not merely
a controversy about religious art, but about the Incarnation,
about human salvation, about the salvation of the entire material
cosmos.
God took a material body, thereby proving that matter can be
redeemed: 'The Word made flesh has deified the flesh,' said John
of Damascus. God has 'deified' matter, making it 'spirit-bearing';
and if flesh has become a vehicle of the Spirit, then so - though
in a different way - can wood and paint. The Orthodox doctrine
of icons is bound up with the Orthodox belief that the whole
of God's creation, material as well as spiritual, is to be redeemed
and glorified. In the words of Nicolas Zernov (1898-I980) - what
he says of Russians is true of all Orthodox:
[Icons] were for the Russians not merely paintings. They were
dynamic manifestations of man's spiritual power to redeem creation
through beauty and art. The colours and lines of the [icons]
were not meant to imitate nature; the artists aimed at demonstrating
that men, animals, and plants, and the whole cosmos, could be
rescued from their present state of degradation and restored
to their proper 'Image'. The [icons] were pledges of the coming
victory of a redeemed creation over the fallen one . . . The
artistic perfection of an icon was not only a reflection of the
celestial glory - it was a concrete example of matter restored
to its original harmony and beauty, and serving as a vehicle
of the Spirit. The icons were part of the transfigured cosmos.'
7. Nicea -
The Victory of the Iconophiles and the Final Triumph of Orthodoxy.........................................................................................(Documents)
The conclusion of the Iconoclast dispute, the meeting of the
seventh Ecumenical Council, the Triumph of Orthodoxy in 843 -
these mark the end of the second period in Orthodox history,
the period of the seven councils. These seven councils are of
immense importance to Orthodoxy. For members of the Orthodox
Church, their interest is not merely historical but contemporary;
they are the concern not only of scholars and clergy, but of
all the faithful. 'Even illiterate peasants,' said Dean Stanley,
'to whom, in the corresponding class of life in Spain and Italy,
the names of Constance and Trent would probably be quite unknown,
are well aware that their Church reposes on the basis of the
seven councils, and retain a hope that they may yet live to see
an eighth general council, in which the evils of the time will
be set straight.' Orthodox often call themselves 'the Church
of the Seven Councils'. By this they do not mean that the Orthodox
Church has ceased to think creatively since 787. But they see
in the period of the councils the great age of theology; and,
next to the Bible, it is the seven councils which the Orthodox
Church takes as its standard and guide in seeking solutions to
new problems which arise in every generation.
Abridged, from Callistos Ware
History of the Church Ch.2 |