Icons

The Seventh Great Ecumenical Council (787 AD) disagreed.

The key decree of Nicaea II states that holy images – painted, mosaic, or in other suitable materials – are to be set up in churches, on vessels and vestments, on walls, in houses, and in public places. These include:

• the image of Christ
• the Theotokos (Mother of God)
• the angels
• all the saints

The principal argument was Christological. Because the eternal Word became flesh and was seen, He can be depicted. To refuse to depict Christ is, in the council’s view, to undermine the reality of the Incarnation. Icons therefore serve as a confession that the Word truly became man and that material creation can be sanctified.

The council also appealed to the antiquity of the practice and to the written and unwritten tradition of the Church. It anathematized those who called the sacred images idols or who refused to venerate them.