www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology The Ecumenical Councils: Are there 21 or only 7?

I said "within the Church"; it was not a problem until after Vatican II. The Cathari and Waldensian were heretical movements, clearly outside the Church. In the East before the Seventh Ecumenical Council there were Iconoclast bishops, including those of all the major patriarchates, as well as Emperors [a quasi-ecclesial position in Byzantium].
If the understanding of icons as merely decorative [or instructive] persisted in the West it was because the doctrine was not challenged except by the clearly heterodox.
An analogy exists in the relatively undeveloped Eucharistic dogma of the East, where the Real Presence was never denied within the Church, as opposed to the highly developed theological and devotional Eucharistic life of the West, where the doctrine was early attacked by theologians and monks...
I stand by what I have written, and hope that continual discussion in good faith may bring us all to a deeper understanding about these questions.
-Daniel

Daniel, your statement was that iconoclasm was not a problem for the church in the west until the Reformation. The iconoclasts certainly sprang from the western church, even if they then lived as heretical sects apart from it. They were clearly a problem for the western church which is why those movements were suppressed by force.

Andrew

The Synod of Frankfurt explicitly condemned the decrees of the Second Council of Nicaea, and that synod was composed of Latin bishops. Now to be fair to those bishops it should be noted that they misunderstood the teaching of Nicaea II, but regardless, they argued that images were mainly for decorative and didactic purposes, while the Fathers of the East taught that sacred images were to be present in Churches for dogmatic reasons, i.e., for worship.

As far as iconic theology is concerned, I don't think that any Western theologian would hold that sacred icons are infused with divine energy (grace), and that the veneration of icons directly bestows grace upon the faithful. Moreover, Western theology is devoid of any notion that icons and their prototypes share a hypostatic relation. It is because an icon and its prototype are hypostatically one that the icon can be a true personal manifestation of the saint depicted in it. Thus, in the case of icons the West does not merely have an underdeveloped iconic theology, it has no iconic theology.

Finally, as far as the Eucharist is concerned, the Eastern Churches do adore the blessed sacrament, but it is only shown for veneration during the divine liturgy itself, and this follows the practice of the ancient undivided Church.

Blessings to you,
Todd

And what Eastern theologian taught that adoration of the Eucharistic Species apart from the Liturgy bestowes graces?
As the doctrine of the Eucharist was not attacked in the East, it remained relatively undeveloped. As the doctrine of images was not attacked in the West, aside from heretics, it remained undeveloped.
Or are you arguing that images were attacked in the West in the 8th century?
-D

So you're saying that all 300 of the bishops at Frankfurt were heretics? Interesting, since their formulations against adoptionism are included in the Enchiridion Symbolorum, and of course they were "within the Church."

I don't believe that the Eastern Church's theology of the Eucharist is underdeveloped at all, but the West has no iconic theology to speak of; in fact Trent itself condemned the idea that the divine could be in any way in sacred images, which is the exact thing that the East teaches to be the case.

Of course local synods could err; after all Eastern patriarchs were sometimes heresiarchs, though they were "within the Church".
I am only saying that as such things as Eucharistic Adoration did not take hold in the East, so a highly developed theology of the icon did not arise in the West.

And as an aside, how are your ideas received at Steubenville, not noted as being particularly sensitive to these questions? [I have many friends in the community, including some faculty...]

-Daniel

I only brought this up because earlier you had argued that iconoclasts were not present "within the Church" in the West, but that is simply false. Clearly there have been iconoclasts in the Western Church at different times, including the present time.

Now as far as the Eucharist is concerned, I don't see the Western Church's teaching to be "more highly developed." Instead, I see Western liturgical practice as, for lack of a better word, different, but that doesn't mean it is more developed. In fact, one could argue that the West has abandoned the more ancient practice, and so you see it is all a matter of perspective when describing things of this nature. In other words, one could argue that the Westerner practice is "more developed," or one could argue that the Western practice is more innovative and less faithful to the ancient tradition, or one could simply say that the Western and Eastern devotional practices in connection with the Eucharist are different, without trying to say that one is more developed than the other.

That being said, my point in connection with icons still stands, that is, the West has no iconic theology, and icons are seen as a mere matter of discipline in the Western Church. But as I indicated before, in Byzantine theology icons contain grace (i.e., divine energy) itself, and so they are true manifestations of the divine, and are not simply optional decorations, or didactic tools, or matters of discipline. The use of icons in worship is a dogmatic truth.

Apotheoun,

If the west believes that images are mere decorations and educational tools and have no such grace or energy in them, please explain the Divine Mercy devotion, in which in the apparition Jesus tells St. Faustina that those that venerate his image recieve special graces. Also, explain the holy tilma of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Now, let's examine as you say the Council of Trent.


"Moreover, that the images of Christ, of the Virgin Mother of God, and of the other saints, are to be had and retained particularly in temples, and that due honour and veneration are to be given them; not that any divinity, or virtue, is believed to be in them, on account of which they are to be worshipped; or that anything is to be asked of them; or, that trust is to be reposed in images, as was of old done by the Gentiles who placed their hope in idols; but because the honour which is shown them is referred to the prototypes which those images represent; in such wise that by the images which we kiss, and before which we uncover the head, and prostrate ourselves, we adore Christ; and we venerate the saints, whose similitude they bear: as, by the decrees of Councils, and especially of the second Synod of Nicaea, has been defined against the opponents of images." -Council of Trent (Session 25)

What the Council of Trent was talking about is that the images themselves are not the persons we adore or worship as the Gentiles did. Remember, the Gentiles believed that the gods either were the images themselves, or that they would make themselves fully present in the images in order to be idolized. Plus, remember that there can be superstition used with images such as recieving sometype of "magic" from them.

Let's examine further:

"And the bishops shall carefully teach this,-that, by means of the histories of the mysteries of our Redemption, portrayed by paintings or other representations, the people is instructed, and confirmed in (the habit of) remembering, and continually revolving in mind the articles of faith; as also that great profit is derived from all sacred images, not only because the people are thereby admonished of the benefits and gifts bestowed upon them by Christ, but also because the miracles which God has performed by means of the saints, and their salutary examples, are set before the eyes of the faithful; that so they may give God thanks for those things; may order their own lives and manners in imitation of the saints; and may be excited to adore and love God, and to cultivate piety. But if any one shall teach, or entertain sentiments, contrary to these decrees; let him be anathema. -Council of Trent (Session 25)

If the above bolded text does not prove that the west holds that there are sometype of grace or as you say "divine energies" in the sacred images, I don't know what does. I don't know but blessing images and the many rites said by priests that say something like "that he who venerates this may recieve special graces or be blessed," would all be futile if they were just mere decorations and didactic tools. Also, it wouldn't make sense to put votive candles in front of statues and so forth.


May God bless you

The source used for the Council of Trent is: http://www.shc.edu/theolibrary/docs.htm

Our Logos Teen has an interesting sense of chronology. I recommended an excellent book [ The Stripping of the Altars ] which describes in great and painful detail what the iconoclasts did in England in the fifteenth century, and our Logos Teen accuses me of being concerned only about post-Vatican II!

Icognitus

Just look at any church or cathedral interior painted by Pieter Saenredam.

Andrew

Umm.. Wasn't those paintings based on the interior of Dutch Reformed Churches in the early 16th century?

Roman_Army,

You have emphasized the wrong phrase in the Tridentine text, because what is problematic is the following statement:

". . . not that any divinity, or virtue, is believed to be in them, on account of which they are to be worshipped."

In Byzantine tradition it is true to say that divinity, i.e., divine energy, is present in an icon, and that is precisely why the icon is worshipped with the worship of veneration. The icon contains the divine energies and has a hypostatic relationship with the saint depicted in it. Part of the problem in this discussion is that East and West have different views on the nature of grace. In the East grace is divine energy, i.e., it is God as He exists outside of His ineffable essence, while for the West grace is a created reality. The two views are very different.

Blessings to you,
Todd

Just for the record, in most traditional Roman Catholic churches I've been to, people venerate statues of the Saints, as well as Our Lord and His Mother.

In one local RC church, the faithful enter the nave and immediately go to kiss the feet of an exquisite image of Christ and to venerate it.

I'll make it easy for Apotheoun: What do you think is an undeveloped aspect of doctrine in the East that is more developed and better understood in the West?

Logos Teen

Sorry about that, Incog! I forgot what that book was about, having never read it, and immediately my mind went to Vatican II reforms.

My point still stands, however, that this isn't talking about the 7th Ecumenical Council.

Logos Teen

Apotheoun,

The words "divinity" and "virtue" are intended in a completly different way. What the entire passage is just trying to say is that we do not worship the material objects themselves, but instead we worship and honor the persons represented in them. It does not at all exclude as you say "Divine Energy" which in the West would mean "Grace" or "holiness" present in the sacred image. It seems you have ignored my second quoting which immediately proceeds the first.

Now, let's look at how the Second Council of Nicaea formulated and decreed it:

"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." -Council of Nicaea

The above in bold is all that the Council of Trent was trying to re-affirm. We do not worship the images as if they were themselves a diety. They are not "divine nature."


May God bless you.