Speaking of the Second Council of Nicea, its defenders, and the theology of the veneration given to images, not the images’ heavenly prototype merely, Dom Chapman wrote:
[I]n a letter written in the name of all the Abbots of Constantinople “to the iconoclastic synod”:--
“We venerate images . . . not because we are assured that we are right by the second holy synod of Nicaea or by that which earlier decided divinely, but from the very coming of our Lord and God in writing and without writing we have been made firm and rest securely upon that see to which Christ saith: Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” (Bk. II. Ep. I, P.G. 99, p. 1117) (Dom John Chapman, The First Eight General Councils and Papal Infallibility [London: Catholic Truth Society, 1906], 76, italics in original, emphasis in bold added)
This again shows that, contrary to some errant Catholic apologists, Catholic theology (as well as that of Eastern Orthodoxy) teaches that the image/icon receives some veneration, too, not just the saint in heaven whom it depicts.
For more, see:
The Synod of Elvira vs. Second Nicea on Veneration of Images
Robert Bellarmine Affirming the Veneration of Images, not the Heavenly Prototype Merely
God Commanding the Making of the Brass Serpent and Cherubim: Support for the Veneration of Images?
