My main purpose is to do apologetics on this blog and most of the time apologetics goes hand and hand to what else I am really passionate about which is catechesis. Most of the objections I do face to Catholicism from opponents of the one, true, holy, Catholic, and apostolic church comes down to Mary’s role, images, prayers to the saints, etc. My favorite thing to discuss is the use of images and so it is ever so appropriate to speak about issues because today in the Eastern Catholic Churches primarily in the Byzantine Catholic Churches we do commemorate the second council of Nicea which dealt with so many different problems such as iconoclasm. As Catholics we do not refer to scripture alone or sola scriptura or solo scriptura (I use that for the baptists for even their definition of sola scriptura is unfaithful to what its founder had defined). We Catholics look to philosophy, magisterial teaching, scripture, and church father’s writings. We look to all of these three pegs to hold up the stool and then guided by the Holy Spirit we teach. If you are a Catholic one thing you can be assured of is that you are right, 2000 years of ecclesiology and ecclesiastical history does prove Catholics to be right, today you will be proven wrong on the use of images in churches using history.
Iconoclasm was the idea or the belief that holy images should not be in places of worship or the idea that images should not be used or worshipped. Iconoclasm is the destruction and desecration of religious icons for religious or political movements. It was and still is considered a “Christian heresy”. People who are called iconoclasts are people disdains or damages a religious image or dogma.
Iconoclasm started sometime during 726-730. The Byzantine Emperor Leo III reigning from 717-714 ordered the destruction of and image of Jesus placed over the gate of Constantinople. Sources say the removal happened because Leo III thought this was the wrath of God for idolatry with certain military reversals and destructive events such as the eruption of the volcanic island Thera.
As a result the Second Council of Nicea came about in 1 August 786 but was interrupted by iconoclastic soldiers. The meeting adjourned in Nicaea on 24 September 787, the papal legates having been recalled from Sicily.
The council re-affirmed the creed and the belief on the creed and issued 22 additional Cannons. It affirmed that the church of Christ has no blemish or stain and that Christ is with and has been with his church since day one and will never leave.
The council decrees that : written and unwritten ecclesiastical traditions that have been entrusted to us.{Council formulates for the first time what the Church has always believed regarding icons}One of these is the production of representational art; this is quite in harmony with the history of the spread of the gospel, as it provides confirmation that the becoming man of the Word of God was real and not just imaginary, and as it brings us a similar benefit. For, things that mutually illustrate one another undoubtedly possess one another’s message.
Given this state of affairs and stepping out as though on the royal highway, following as we are
the God-spoken teaching of our holy fathers and
the tradition of the catholic church —
for we recognize that this tradition comes from the holy Spirit who dwells in her–we decree with full precision and care that,like the figure of the honoured and life-giving cross,the revered and holy images,whether painted or made of mosaic or of other suitable material, are to be exposed
- in the holy churches of God,
- on sacred instruments and vestments,
- on walls and panels,
- in houses and by public ways
The images contain:
- our Lord, God and saviour, Jesus Christ, and of our Lady without blemish, the holy God-bearer,
- the revered angels and
- any of the saintly holy men.
The anathemas are as follows:
- If anyone does not confess that Christ our God can be represented in his humanity, let him be anathema.
- If anyone does not accept representation in art of evangelical scenes, let him be anathema.
- If anyone does not salute such representations as standing for the Lord and his saints, let him be anathema.
- If anyone rejects any written or unwritten tradition of the church, let him be anathema.
The reason why these decrees and anathemas are put in place because we literally follow Paul and follow the traditions of the apostles. We do not follow latria (full adoration which is only for the divine not the image). The image resembles or represents the figure. In conclusion we are drawn to pay homage or honor or our respects to the person using incense or lights. The honor paid to an image traverses it, reaching the model. We are not giving honor to the portrait but rather to the person of the portrait. We do not worship images.
The council states(so you know its not my own interpretation):
The more frequently they are seen in representational art, the more are those who see them drawn to remember and long for those who serve as models, and to pay these images the tribute of salutation and respectful veneration. Certainly this is not the full adoration {latria} in accordance with our faith, which is properly paid only to the divine nature, but it resembles that given to the figure of the honoured and life-giving cross, and also to the holy books of the gospels and to other sacred cult objects. Further, people are drawn to honour these images with the offering of incense and lights, as was piously established by ancient custom. Indeed, the honour paid to an image traverses it, reaching the model, and he who venerates the image, venerates the person represented in that image. So it is that the teaching of our holy fathers is strengthened, namely, the tradition of the catholic church which has received the gospel from one end of the earth to the other.
Apostolic key answers from an apostolic authority, the church!
Defending Rome 