Religious art and religious rules

The Seventh Ecumenical council met in Nicaea (province Bithynia, Asia Minor) from 24 September to 13 October 787, at the initiative of the queen regent Irene. Also known as the second Synod of Nicaea, this ecumenical council of Orthodox bishops gathered 350 people and was chaired by St. Tarasie Confessor (commemorated 25 February), Patriarch of Constantinople at the time. The council condemned iconoclasm as a heresy and restored the cult of holy icons. It was the last of the seven ecumenical councils. Theological disputes about the person of Jesus Christ ended the Sixth Ecumenical Council in 681, but continued in the centuries VIII and IX. This time the controversy gathered pace around the subject iconic representation of Christ in the first place, and the Virgin Mary and saints in the background. Iconoclastic crisis began under Emperor Leon III Isaurian (717-741), and continued under the reign of his son, Constantine V Copronymus (741-775). In 726, Leon III, taking advantage of the popularity of warrior, published an edict against sacred images (under the influence of bishops and Thomas Constantine Nacolia Claudiopolis). By virtue of this edict is destroyed representation of Christ on the Halki (Constantinople), which provoked a popular insurrection immediately drowned in blood. An edict more radical and aggressive is promulgated by Leon in January 730. This Isaurian edict provide not only destroy the holy icons, but of holy relics. Imperial policy is opposed not only monks but theological and spiritual authority of the Empire - such as St. John of Damascus - but Pope Gregory III of Rome. In retaliation, Emperor Leon III confiscated all the goods from Sicily and Calabria pontifical, then still the Byzantine territories. The icons were preserved and venerated both in churches and in private homes. The two groups were involved in this controversy: Iconoclasts also called "sfărâmătorii icons" were suspicious any artistic representation of God or of men; they demanded the destruction of icons, regarded as cult icons as idolatry; Iconodules also called "cinstitorii icons" were those who defended the place of icons in the Church. But the controversy itself deeper implications than a mere difference of perspective on Christian art. These deeper issues dealt Synod, namely the character of Christ's human nature Christian attitude on the matter true meaning of Christian redemption and salvation of the entire material universe. Controversy has experienced two significant periods in the first start d.Hr 726, when Emperor Leo III began his offensive against icons and lasts until the year 780, when Empress Irene ended attacks iconoclastic. The second period began in 815 and ending in 843, when Empress Theodora offensive finally ended the iconoclastic. Iconoclasts were supported both inside and outside the Church. Outside the Church, an influence seem to have had Jewish and Muslim ideas about representation of God. Thus, it is important to remember that, immediately before the first outbreak iconoclastic, Muslim Caliph Yezid ordered to remove all icons from the territories controlled by it. Inside the church there was always a more "puritanical" who consider any representation as a latent source of idolatry. Iconoclasts "failed to fully understand the meaning of the Incarnation" when they refused icons. Falling into dualism, they believed that all matter was a vile thing, considering that what is spiritual must be immaterial; thus, they wanted a religion freed from all contact with matter. But such a perspective is removed from the deeper meaning of the Incarnation, since Christ's humanity leaves no room or that he had a body; this error implicit link them to the other controversy about the person of Christ addressed at previous Councils. Iconoclasts forgot that both body and soul need salvation and deification. On teaching about worship icons, having them in churches and private homes is what the Church teaches. They are "open book that remind us of God." Those who do not have enough time or learning how to study theology just enter a church to see it unfold before them the mysteries of the Christian religion. On the importance of doctrinal icons Icons are necessary and essential for defending the teaching of the Incarnation full and straight. Though God can not be represented in His eternal nature ( " no one has seen God, John 1: 18), he can still be portrayed simply that" Man was made flesh. "Images can be made so materials of Him who took a material body. Taking a material body, God proved that matter can be saved. He deified matter, making a carrier Spirit so that, if the body can become the habitation of the Spirit, so can do and wood or color, though in a different way. I do not worship matter, but the Creator of matter, which for me became material and deigned to dwell in, that the matter had performed my salvation - St. John of Damascus.

Sfântul Nicolae Velimirovici, Credinţa Sfinţilor. Catehismul Bisericii Ortodoxe, trad. de Petre Valentin Lică, Editura Biserica Ortodoxă, Bucureşti, 2004.

Ioan Vlăducă, Despre Sfintele Icoane, Editura Axa Publishing, Bucureşti, 2009.

Leonid Uspensky, Teologia icoanei, trad. de Theodor Baconsky, Editura Renaşterea, Cluj-Napoca, 2012.