17. The Seventh holy and
Ecumenical Synod was held in Nicaea, the capital of Bithynia. Of old it had
determined the truth of doctrines; now it provided a touchstone of piety. Some
368 men of God were in attendance. The leaders and principal figures of this
great and sacred assembly included Tarasios, renowned among the bishops of God;
he was a pious and altogether excellent man, worthy, if any other man ever was,
to direct the patriarchal affairs of the imperial city. There was also the most
prudent Peter, the first priest of the holy Roman Church, and another Peter,
also a priest, the abbot of the monastery of St. Sabbas there in Rome. They
were allotted the place of the apostolic see, since they represented Pope
Adrian. Along with them there were John and Thomas, men illustrious for their
monastic life, and those who shone with episcopal glory, those who represented
the entire area of Anatolia, rich in apostolic sees, and those who embodied the
dignity of patriarchs.I mean Apollinarios, Theodoretos, and Elias, the one of
Alexandria, the second of Antioch, the last of Jerusalem. Each ruled his see
wisely and well. At that time Constantine and Irene, crowned with the chaplet
of the true faith, were garbed in the imperial purple of Roman majesty. This
great and holy synod considered the recent and barbarous heresy, introduced by
impious and dreadful men. The synod condemned it with a divine and unanimous
decision and placed its contrivers and champions under the same judgment. These
wretches did not dare to blaspheme Christ, our true God, with their words, but
by their deeds they contrived all manner of outrages, blasphemies, and
impieties. They did not dare to defame him directly and without any disguise,
but through His sacred image they fulfilled the whole desire of those who war
against Christ. They condemned the sacred image of Christ (O the discordance of
a daring and godless mind and tongue!) as an idol, that image by which the
error of idols is routed. They subjected it to all kinds of indignity;
through the streets and squares they kicked it with their feet, they ridiculed
it, they threw it into the fire. A pitiful sight for Christians and fit only
for those pagans who were at war with Christ. They did the same sort of thing
to the other sacred images as, swift to shed blood, they mistreated them with
their feet, with their murderous hands, and their profane lips, nor were these
accursed men ever satisfied with this wild madness. In their hatred for the
sacred symbols and images of Christians, they felt a loathing for them that was
not less, but in fact more than their loathing for the idols of the Greeks
[pagans]. Thereby they declared an unquenchable war against Christ and his
saints; the fight was bitter and all-out. For everyone sees that the honor paid
to images produces honor to those who are imaged forth, even as dishonor to the
former affects those who are imaged forth. But these men, freshly spring
from the Jews who warred with Christ, as they insulted the sacred image of
Christ and his saints, made good the deficiency of their ancestors; they
tried to outdo the Jews, their progenitors, in the excess of their zeal. But
since, in the presence of Christians, they did not dare to deny Christ with
their lips, right there they proved that they had tempered the Jewish zeal of
their ancestors; they showed that their imitation was a spurious thing, and
they kept no one position. But as though they had their heads bowed with
evil, they called themselves Christians, but were insolent towards Christ.
They did not call themselves Jews, but they rivaled their combat against Christ
in their iconoclasm; in fact they surpassed them. Not only that, but shunning
the very name of idolatry, they made charges against Christians and the holy
and undefiled mysteries of Christianity that were no more tolerable than those
made by idolators. Therefore, as many of them as were unwilling to flee the
meanness of this adultery, of this luxuriant and well- kneaded belief, were
condemned by this sacred ecumenical synod as illegitimate, as foreign to the
genuine character of believers; it subjected them to the unbreakable bonds of
anathema. But the image of Christ, who is truly our God, in accordance with
traditions handed down from the Apostles and Fathers as well as by divine
revelation, should be reverenced and honored out of respect and veneration for
the person who is imaged forth: this was the unanimous decision ratified by the
synod. Such respect and veneration should be paid in the same manner in which
we do reverence to the other sacred images and symbols of our most holy
religion. We do not fix our respect and veneration on them nor do we limit our
respect and veneration to them, nor are we divided into different and diverse
ends. Through the palpably different and divided service and veneration we
pay them we are led aloft, in a sacred and indivisible manner, to that
undivided, simple, and unifying deity.
18. Thus we venerate the holy
cross, upon which our Lord’s body was stretched, from which his blood,
as an expiation for the universe, gushed forth. The nature of that wood was
watered by those streams and bloomed with eternal life rather than death. Thus
we reverence the image of the cross, by which legions of devils are routed and
strange maladies cured. Grace and power were infused once and for all in that
first cross and continue to be active in all other crosses. Each of them,
then, I mean the image of Christ, the cross itself, and the representation of
the cross, we judge worthy of honor and veneration, but we do not limit or
prescribe the reverence and honor given to them. Rather we refer and elevate
this veneration to the One who became man for us out of his ineffable, abundant
love for man and willingly endured a most shameful death on our behalf. So
we reverence in faith the churches of the saints, their graves, and their
relics, which produce cures for the faithful, as we glorify and extol Christ
our God, who honored them. And if there is something similar to them in our
sacred mysteries, e.g., their active grace and good works, we acknowledge and
acclaim the source as responsible. Therefore that divine and sacred assemblage
of blessed and holy men confirmed through its decisions that not only should
the image of Christ be honored and reverenced, as we have said, but also that
of our spotless and ever-virgin lady, the Mother of God, and those of all the
saints in keeping with the abundant holiness of their prototypes. By them
we are brought to a simple and unifying contemplation. These were wise and
inspired decrees, which drove out that whole heretical disease and all the
ugliness of that rational herd. The Church was shown resuming her proper beauty
and raiment. Like a bride, not bedecked with golden ornaments, but with sacred
images, she was placed on the right of her bridegroom Christ, a sight for happy
and joyful eyes, a delight for the entire body of believers. (The Patriarch
and the Prince: The Letter of Patriarch Photios of Constantinople to Khan Boris
of Bulgaria [trans. Despina Stratoudaki White and Joseph R. Berrigan, Jr.;
Brookline, Mass.: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1982], 50-53, emphasis in bold
added)
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