The Living Tradition An Orthodox Archive of the Church Fathers and Early Church

The seven ecumenical councils — lesson 8

Council 7: Nicaea, 787

Holy images restored, and the distinction that makes the question tractable.

  • Dogmatic definitionDefined by an ecumenical council or otherwise confessed by the Church as binding doctrine. Not every sentence a council wrote is a definition: its acts, letters and disciplinary canons are different things.
  • Historical consensusBroadly agreed among historians working from the surviving evidence. Consensus can shift when the evidence or the method changes.

Primary evidence verified Content last reviewed 2026-08-29

What still needs checking (1)
  • Confirm the Orthodox catechetical presentation of this council against the OCA's The Orthodox Faith.

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What this lesson covers

  • State what the Seventh Council defined.
  • Say why iconoclasm returned and when it ended.

About 5 minutes to read.

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The Seventh Council rejected the iconoclast gathering of 754 and restored the veneration of images, defining that the honour given to an image passes to the one depicted, and that the worship due to God alone belongs to God alone.

The argument is Christological: because God has genuinely become man and been seen, he can be depicted as man. An icon depicts the person, not the divine nature.

It also issued twenty-two disciplinary canons, covering the knowledge of Scripture and the canons required of bishops, simony, and the ordering of monasteries — the work of a Church repairing itself after decades of internal conflict.

Iconoclasm returned under Leo V in 815 and was finally ended in 843, which the Orthodox Church commemorates on the first Sunday of Great Lent as the Triumph of Orthodoxy. This is the last council the Orthodox Church receives as ecumenical.

Key Scripture

  • Colossians 1:15 — The image of the invisible God.
  • Exodus 25:18-22 — Images commanded by God for the ark.

On Scripture references. References are given so you can read the passage in the translation your parish uses. This site does not reproduce a modern copyrighted Bible text.

Council and canon connections

  • The full guide, with the council's own documents, is at Nicaea, 787.

Why this matters in lived Orthodoxy

Every Orthodox church interior is an argument from this council, and the Sunday of Orthodoxy procession with icons commemorates its final vindication in 843.

Review

What distinction did the Seventh Council define?
That the honour given to an image passes to the one depicted, while the worship due to God alone belongs to God alone.
When did iconoclasm finally end?
In 843, commemorated as the Triumph of Orthodoxy on the first Sunday of Great Lent.

Your notes

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Going deeper

Sources for this page

  1. Tier C The Seven Ecumenical Councils of the Undivided Church Henry R. Percival (ed.); Philip Schaff and Henry Wace (series eds.) The Decree of the Second Council of Nice; Canons I-XXII; Epitome of the Definition of the Iconoclastic Conciliabulum annotated edition of conciliar texts Source record

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