Second Council of Nicaea
- When
- 787 AD
- Where
- Nicaea
- Kind
- Council
Restored the veneration of icons after half a century of imperial iconoclasm, and is the last council the Orthodox count as ecumenical.
Emperors from Leo III had ordered images destroyed and those who defended them punished, on the ground that veneration was idolatry. The council drew the distinction the whole argument turned on: proskynesis, the honour paid to an icon, passes to the person depicted, while latreia, worship, belongs to God alone. Its underlying argument was about the incarnation — that God having taken a body, the body can be depicted. Iconoclasm returned once more before ending in 843, still kept as the Triumph of Orthodoxy. Charlemagne's theologians rejected the council on the basis of a bad Latin translation, which is part of why the west never weighted it as the east does.
Bodies it bears on
Party to it
Carried it on
Who stands here
- John of Damascus
c. 675–c. 749
Died before it; the council followed the defence of images he had written from outside the empire
Either side of it
The whole timeline, from the apostolic communities to the present.