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

We are arguing about the nature of grace, not worship in the sense of adoration. An icon is infused with divinity, it contains within itself the divine energy, and so for the East the icon and its prototype form a single complexus, and the worship of veneration can be given to it. Thus, when a man touches an icon, he touches the reality of the prototype manifested by the image, for as St. Photios said, "[Icons] are no longer wooden boards . . . or colors bereft of the inherent power and grace which produces form, neither can they be so conceived nor so named; but rather, they are holy and honourable and glorified and venerable. For having come to participate in the energy that comes from above, and in those holy persons, they bear the form and the name and are dedicated [to them], they transport the minds to them and bring us blessings and divine favour from them." The icon brings blessings to us, because it is hypostatically one with the saint depicted in it. An icon is a real manifestation of a saint, and not merely a mental reminder of that saint's presence. That being said, the West sees an icon as a sign that points to something outside itself, that is, to something in heaven, which man cannot really come into contact with, but which he can piously imagine.

The West does not have a theology of icons which sees them as living realities; instead, icons are decorations, or didactic tools, or reminders of people who are absent from our presence because they are in heaven. East and West have different views on the nature of sacred images.

It's a visual representation of the effects of the same forces that are outlined in the Duffy book (although I believe he contends that unlike the Low Countries the iconoclasm in England was driven top down). The Beeldenstorm was enacted with great ferocity and intensity which the stark interiors attest to. There were of course other similar episodes in the northern German principalities.

I also recalled today one other group may have prefigured the Reformation, and those were the Taborites in Bohemia.

Andrew

Dear Apotheoun, I would like to read from the Fathers on this point of hypostatic union. Can you give some references?

One of the things that I was trying to highlight in my earlier post was the fact that talking about an "underdeveloped" theology is a purely subjective and pointless exercise. The reason that I say this is because one man's "underdeveloped" theology is another man's fidelity to ancient tradition.

Who is it that determines what is or is not an "underdeveloped" theology?

I can honestly say that in all my time as a Catholic I have never come across an "underdeveloped" theology within the Church.

There is an excellent book that covers this topic written by Ambroasias Giakalis and entitled "Images of the Divine: The Theology of Icons at the Seventh Ecumenical Council." It provides the information you have requested.

One note of clarification, the union between the icon and its prototype is not properly hypostatic; rather, it is energetic, but the energy enacted by a hypostasis can never be separated from its source, even though it is distinct from it, it is never separated from it. Thus, the saint energizes through the icon, which manifests his personal (enhypostatic) presence to the worshipper.

For more information consult the book I recommended above. You may also want to look at the writings of St. Theodore Studite, because if my memory serves me, he also spoke about the hypostatic relation that exists between an icon and its prototype.

Blessings to you,
Todd

Dear Apotheoun,

The West certainly emphasizes different things about icons and images, but I think there should be no doubt that the Latin Catholic West does indeed understand images as sacramentals/vessels of grace that is communicated to the Christian.

The West, for example, has its miraculous icons/images and Italy boasts about 1,500 Church-approved miraculous images of the Mother of God!

The language of Trent was designed, so I understand, to emphasize the veneration of images in keeping with the Seventh Ecumenical Council, but to address Protestant charges of "image-worship."

In the East, the notion of image-worship did not really come up as something that helped precipitate the 7th Ec. Council.

Instead, it was a matter of "over-doing" the veneration of images and this against the backdrop of the imperial desire to placate iconoclasts for political purposes (the practice of scraping paint off sacred icons and mixing them with Holy Communion in the chalice, bringing home icons of one's relatives into the Church etc.).

Your articulation of the real differences between East and West is always strong and comprehensive.

But there should be no doubt that the Catholic West does see the Divine Presence in images, especially miraculous images and it certainly has enough of those!

Happy new year!

Alex

Alex,

That is why I said that the real question in connection with icons is: "What is grace?" Because for the East grace is God Himself as He exists outside of His incommunicable essence, while for the West grace is a created reality. It is the conception of grace as created that is problematic, and that is why Trent stated that images do not contain divinity within them.

Blessings to you,
Todd

Dear Friends,

This is a fascinating topic, and so early in the new year!

The earlier exchange on the numbering of the Councils is something I wanted to return to for a moment, with everyone's permission.

As a Ukrainian Catholic, I would NEVER go anywhere in a public forum in my Church and say there are really only "Seven Ecumenical Councils" unless I knew those present were all "Administrator-types" or real "Orthodox in communion with Rome" fellows.

The parish priest of my old parish, with two doctorates and a licentiate from Rome (the Propaganda, no less), would, if he heard this, take my head off, in any event.

At best, the "EC's accept only 7 Ec Councils" position is an EC "theologoumenon" where this has yet to be officially articulated by our bishops. And even if it were, there is nothing saying many EC's would oppose that position (just as very few seem to concern themselves with our Can. hierarchy's position on the Filioque).

It is certainly, from my point of view, a defensible position for Eastern Catholics of the Byzantine tradition to take and reflects "Eastern Christian theology" at its best.

And even if the Roman Church defined its later 14 councils as "ecumenical" or "universal," there is no problem for other Churches to see in this the notion of the "universal ROMAN Church."

For example, when the Pope canonized St Josaphat, an EC saint, in 1875, in fact his cult was limited ONLY to the Eastern Catholic churches.

The universal Latin Church included his name in its own calendar only in 1886.

And councils can only be "ecumenical" in the classic sense IF doctrine is being defined.

Most of the 14 Latin Councils did NOT define doctrine as the 7 Ecumenical Councils of the undivided Church truly did.

Vatican II can hardly be said to have defined any doctrine - even its document on the Eastern Catholic Churches is really, as Eastern theologians have said, a "Latin document about the Christian East."

The two Latin Marian dogmas were defined precisely outside a council by the person of the Pope. (They asserted what the Christian East has always affirmed liturgically within the "lex orandi, lex credendi" tradition that the Mother of God was sanctified from her very Conception and that she was taken to heaven bodily after her dormition.)

The papal dogmas on papal jurisdictional primacy and infallibility were, in fact, just that - dogmas defined by the Pope and not by any Council in the way dogmas were defined at the Seven Ecumenical Councils i.e.

Certainly, one can argue that EC's are obliged to accept these dogmas - I don't see how one may argue that EC's are somehow exempt from accepting them.

The only way that might obtain is if it can be shown, as with the Marian dogmas, that the Catholic East had always accepted with the papal dogmas define - and good luck with that one!

And we EC's should stop pretending that our position is the same as that of the Orthodox with respect to Rome - it is not.

In my humble view, the Administrator sometimes crosses the line here (as I may myself be doing by this seeming act of insubordination!).

The Orthodox can legitimately argue that since they were not present at the 14 Roman councils, they cannot be expected to accept them (there are local Orthodox Councils whose canons ARE universally accepted by Orthodoxy, however).

Fr. John Meyendorff (+memory eternal!) went so far as to say that the Roman dogmas COULD be accepted universally in a united Church within a process of RE-PRESENTING them before an Ecumenical Council of that united Church (Catholic and Orthodox) convened for that purpose (and it would truly be ecumenical in every which way, including the matter of defining dogma).

Alex

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. [/QB][/QUOTE]


By your logic, then, the East does not have a more developed theology of the icon, merely a "different" one. Or perhaps more innovative and less faithful to the ancient tradition? After all, the sort of veneration you describe hardly existed in the ancient Church, but clearly is a later development.
Remember that I entered this discussion defending the idea that the later councils were General Councils of the West, but we seem to have stumbled on defining just what constitutes an ecumenical council. You claim the Western Councils do not qualify because they do not address controversies relevant in the East, but Garrett [Logos Teen] makes a very good point about the 7th. If you can produce a list of Western bishops who were teaching that the veneration of icons was idolatry at the time of the 7th Ecumenical Council I'd like to see it.
No one is denying that iconoclasm has existed in the West, merely that it was not a problem at the time of the Council [and by the way was only peripheral to larger controversies in the Protestant Reformation].
And I'm glad you backed off from that comment you made on the "hypostatic relationship" between an icon and the holy person depicted!
-Daniel

It is important to remember that the Patriarch of the West was represented at the Seventh Ecumenical Council, but the whole of the East has never been represented at the general councils of the West. Even the Council of Florence didn't have representatives of all the Eastern Churches; and moreover, that Western council was explicitly rejected by the Patriarch of Constantinople at a synod in 1484. The Western councils are just that, Western, and they apply to the West, but the doctrinal formulations made at those councils, which are expressed in scholastic terminology, do not represent the Eastern theological tradition, and so, those councils can hardly apply to the East.

As far as the idea that the Western Church has an "underdeveloped" iconic theology is concerned, it does not, it simply has no iconic theology. The Western Church has never taken the use of icons seriously as a dogmatic matter, except of course for the Pope who was involved (by sending representatives) in the Council of Second Nicaea, and who later refuted the Carolingian bishops errors on the issue shortly after the Synod of Frankfurt in 794.

Blessings to you,
Todd

Dear Daniel,

Happy New Year!

What you meant to say, as I believe, is that due to the Protestant controversy over the Eucharist in the West, there was a tremendous emphasis on an overt, para-liturgical cult of the Eucharist to underscore the Real Presence.

It was an extra-liturgical emphasis that simply cannot be compared to the cult of the Eucharist in the East that has no similar extra-liturgical cult outside of the context of Divine Liturgy and Holy Communion.

As for the iconoclasts, yes, the West has had them.

But never on such a grand scale as the East at the time of the Seventh Ecumenical Council where the imperial power of Byzantium itself was in favour of iconoclasm and was using imperious officialdom to martyr and crush iconophiles (any relation to you? ).

In addition, and even more importantly, the imperial power convoked a church council to affirm the iconoclast theology as normative for the Church!

This is the reason given by Oriental Orthodox theologians re: the 7th Ecumenical Council and iconoclasm - it was a phenomenon affecting only the Byzantine Church and had no relevance to the Oriental Churches whose continuous icon-veneration was never threatened or called into question theologically by anyone.

Alex

Dear Todd,

Actually, you put your finger on something that is quite fascinating.

The West truly does not have an iconic theology - outside the 7th Ecumenical Council and its own Latin Councils, such as Trent, that reaffirmed it.

This hasn't prevented RC's from venerating images as the East does, declaring miraculous images and the like (Pope John Paul the Great was particularly fond of crowning miraculous images of the Theotokos, along with declaring saints - although the press never really paid any attention to the former).

I personally believe that the theology of the icon is integrally linked to the theology of Theosis and this could explain why the former is underdeveloped in the West.

Alex

Alex,

I don't deny that the West at the level of "practice" venerates images, because it quite clearly does, but it has no theology of images. There is a disconnect in the West between practice and theology. This disconnect is also evident in the Western mystical tradition, because the great Western mystics are very close in their understanding of mystical encounter to the Eastern mystics -- while not discounting legitimate differences between the two groups -- but Western theology has tended to fall into a form or rationalism, and this can be traced to the rise of Scholasticism in the West. I'm not saying that the West is heretical or anything like that, but there has been a certain reductionism in Western theology, an attempt to "solve" the mystery, rather than simply proclaim and experience it.

Blessings to you,
Todd

You say the West doesn't have "iconic theology"?

Let's see:

"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." - Second Council of Nicaea

"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)

"1192 Sacred images in our churches and homes are intended to awaken and nourish our faith in the mystery of Christ. Through the icon of Christ and his works of salvation, it is he whom we adore. Through sacred images of the holy Mother of God, of the angels and of the saints, we venerate the persons represented." -Catechism of the Catholic Church

The council of Trent does not at all contradict the formulation of the Second Council of Nicaea, but instead re-affirms it. And as you can see the West does believe that somehow the worship goes through the image to the person it represents. To say that the West believes that they're mere decorations, didactic tools, or memorial objects is absured. Clearly, we do venerate them and use them in prayer and worship.

May God bless you.

Roman_Army,

I'm glad that we agree that divinity resides in icons. Sadly the Council of Trent failed to grasp this fact.

Blessings to you,
Todd