A History of the Orthodox Church
The Church of the Oecumenical Councils
Introduction | History | Doctrine
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 325. 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
The main work of the Council of Nicaea in 325 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.
2. Constantinople - The Teaching upon the Holy Spirit
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
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
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 1870, 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
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
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.
Webmaster Note: This page was retrieved from www.archive.org after decani.yunet.com went defunct following the Kosovo conflict. This page was originally created by monks at Decani Monastery in Kosovo. It has been slightly edited for inclusion on this site. Abridged, from Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Church, Ch.2