Sermon: The Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council
After Christ’s ascension into heaven and the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples and apostles on the day of Pentecost, the Church underwent great persecution at the hands of the pagans. All of the twelve apostles, with the exception of St John the Theologian died a martyric death. Christ allowed His Church to be tested by persecution as gold is tried by fire in order to separate the wheat from the tares. When St. Constantine the Great liberated the Church from the persecutions he found the Christians divided over a theological controversy concerning the Divinity of Christ which is known as Arianism. God also allowed this to occur, in order to prove the faithful. St. Paul writes to the Corinthians (1st Corinthians 11:18) … there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you. St. Constantine, as the Roman emperor called together all the bishops of the ecumene to give him the Church’s dogma concerning the Divinity of Christ and heal the division. This is known as the First Ecumenical Council which was attended by 318 Holy Fathers among whom were Sts. Nicholas of Myra and Spyridon of Trymythus the wonderworkers. Unfortunately, this did not put an end to divisions in the Church. From the fourth to the eighth centuries the Greco-Roman Emperors called together seven different Ecumenical Councils, each to combat a particular heresy thereby expressing the Orthodox Church’s dogmatic teaching. Today we keep the memory of the 367 Holy Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council held in Nicea in 787 AD.
The heresy which the Seventh Ecumenical Council combated was called Iconoclasm, which means icon-breaking. The iconoclasts or icon-breakers felt that the icons were akin to idols and we should not reverence them for that would be idolatry. The Emperor and the Patriarch of Constantinople were both Iconoclasts. They stripped the churches of their icons and burned them or threw them into the sea. Anyone who dared to object was put to a martyric death. It was, at that time, illegal to keep and reverence icons. The Orthodox, that is those who reverenced the icons, were disparagingly referred to as “iconoduls” that is, servants of the icons. The iconoclasts accused us of worshiping the actual icon, the wood and the paint. As we all very well know we do not worship the icon itself but the image depicted on the icon. St John of Damascus, whose hand was cut off because of his defense of the Holy Icons wrote “concerning the charge of idolatry: Icons are not idols but symbols, therefore when an Orthodox venerates an icon, he is not guilty of idolatry. He is not worshipping the symbol, but merely venerating it. Such veneration is not directed toward wood, or paint or stone, but towards the person depicted. Therefore relative honor is shown to material objects, but worship is due to God alone. 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. I do not worship matter, but the Creator of matter, who for my sake became material and deigned to dwell in matter, who through matter effected my salvation...
The definition of the Orthodox Faith concerning icons and their veneration expressed by the Holy Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council through the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit is as follows: Venerating icons, having them in churches and homes, is what the Church teaches. They are "open books to remind us of God." Those who lack the time or learning to study theology need only to enter a church to see the mysteries of the Christian religion unfolded before them. Concerning the doctrinal significance of icons the Council teaches that icons are necessary and essential because they protect the full and proper doctrine of the Incarnation. While God cannot be represented in His eternal nature for "...no man has seen God", (John 1:18), He can be depicted simply because He "became human and took flesh." Of Him who took a material body, material images can be made. In so taking a material body, God proved that matter can be redeemed. He deified matter, making it spirit-bearing, and so if flesh can be a medium for the Spirit, so can wood or paint, although in a different fashion. Icons... are to be kept in churches and honored with the same relative veneration as is shown to other material symbols, such as the \'precious and life-giving Cross\' and the Book of the Gospels. Icons are windows into heaven. Let us therefore keep in mind that when we reverence an icon, the reverence we show passes directly to the person depicted therein, be it Christ, Panagia or any of the saints.