Iconcolasm

Introduction

No one can enter an Eastern Christian Church, be it Catholic or Orthodox, without first noticing the icon screen and all the other icons throughout the sanctuary and other places in the Church. It is literally inescapable. It is a hallmark of our Church.

In a book I am currently reading, “Everywhere Present,” by Fr. Stephen Freeman, he speaks at length about icons and their place in our Church.

“Few things play as large a role in the life of the Eastern Church as icons. ...Icons are not windows to another world, per se, but a revelation of the truth of existence—an existence that is more than we may see at first encounter. When we paint an icon of a saint, the effort is to paint the saint in the truth of his or her life, not in his or her mere historical appearance. Thus the symbolism of the Byzantine style points us towards the holiness of a saint. Thus a great part of the Christian vocation is living in such a way that we will be able to see more and more clearly the truth of our own existence and of the world around us. There are those (non-Orthodox) who view the making and venerating of icons as inessential in Christianity. They may be willing to tolerate such things but do not see them as necessary. Making and venerating icons, in the wisdom of the Church, is not only pleasant, but indeed necessary. ...The veneration of an icon is an essential part of actually seeing it. The persons or situations that are presented to us in an icon are situations that call for humility of heart and an attitude of reverence. In some cases, the reverence is so deep that we not only kiss the icon involved, we actually prostrate ourselves to the ground before we kiss it (this is the case with the Holy Cross and with the burial shroud of Christ). We have a culture where people bow themselves before money, before food, before the flesh, before power, before almost anything but the things of God. Our hearts are thus poisoned, and our vision becomes clouded. We cannot see or judge anything correctly. We do not see or know the true God, nor do we see our neighbors for who they truly are. The only corrective is to live a life learning to rightly honor those things that should be honored. If kissing an icon seems foreign, it may be merely a cultural issue; but, mind you, ours is a culture that has not taught us how to honor the things of God. Icons reveal something about the character of the world in which we live. They reveal that there is a distortion within us such that what things seem to be is not what they are. Icons are windows to heaven but also windows to the Truth, and thus, also, windows into the truth of our selves. The fact that icons cannot be truly seen without also being venerated points to the fact that our perception of the world and reality is also rooted in our relationship with the world and reality. Perceiving the truth is not an abstract, gnostic exercise, but a function of love and of holding things in their proper place of honor. The veneration of icons not only reveals the truth of our existence—the hatred of icons reveals a great darkness within us and within the history of human culture. At various times and places, often with political or religious justification, outbreaks of iconoclasm (the “smashing of icons”) have marred the peace of the world. ...icons. Iconoclasm is a strange manifestation of human sin that has as its driving force—and hence, its allurement—the claim that it is defending the honor of God. The icon smashers are as varied as certain forms of Islam or certain forms of Puritanism (and some of its Protestant successors). Some icon smashers direct their attention to pictures or statues per se, while others turn their attention even to ideological icons, such as the honoring of certain days and holidays. ...The plain truth of the matter is that God is an icon-maker. He first made man “in His own image.” And in becoming man, the man He became is described as the “image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15). The same God who gave the commandment to make no graven images also commanded the making of the cherubim on the Ark of the Covenant, as well as the images of angels woven in the curtain of the Tabernacle. He commanded the making of the image of the serpent lifted on a staff which brought healing to all who looked on it (an Old Testament prefiguration of the crucified Christ). ...There is within iconoclasm a spirit of hatred and anger. Without them destruction would not be so easy. But such spirits are not of God—though they are easily attributed to zeal or excused as exuberance. Iconoclasm is not the narrow way, but the wide path of destruction.”

I could go on, but I will stop here. What we see is that icons and iconoclasm must be mutually exclusive if we are truly to be Christian in the fullest sense.

History

As much as iconoclasts quote the Commandment against graven images, they never seem to read further in their Bibles.

The Lexham English Septuagint Chapter 25

9 *“And then you will make an ark of testimony from wood that does not easily deteriorate, two cubits and a half for its length and a cubit and a half for its width and a cubit and a half for its height. 10 *And you will gild it with pure gold, outside and inside with gold you will overlay it, and you will make for it a raised molding of plaited gold running around it. 11 *And you will cast for it four gold rings, and you will place them on the four sides: two rings on the one side and two rings on the second side. 12 *And then you will make carrying poles of wood that does not deteriorate, and you will overlay them with gold. 13 *And then you will insert the poles into the rings that are on the sides of the ark for carrying the ark by them. 14 *The carrying poles will be in the rings of the ark permanently. 15 *And you will place into the ark the testimony that I am giving to you. 16 *And then you will make the mercy seat, a cover of pure gold, two cubits and a half for its length and a cubit and a half for its width. 17 *And you will make two gold-embossed cherubim, and you will place them at the two sides of the mercy seat. 18 *They will be made one cheroub out of this side and the other cheroub out of the other side of the mercy seat, and so you will make both cherubim upon the two sides. 19 *The cherubim will be spreading out their wings upward, thus overshadowing with their wings the mercy seat, and their faces toward one another, the faces of the cherubim will be in the direction of the mercy seat. 20 *And then you will place the mercy seat upon the ark on top, and into the ark you will place the testimony that I am giving to you. 21 *And I will make myself known to you from there, and I will speak with you from above the mercy seat, between the two cherubim that are over the ark of the testimony, with respect to everything which I may command you pertaining to the children of Israel.”

The Lexham English Septuagint Chapter 21

4 And when they set out from Hor, through territory leading by the way of the Red Sea, they circled around the land of Edom, and the people became weary on the way. 5 And the people railed against God and against Moses, saying, “⌊Why⌋ is it you have led us out of Egypt to slay us in the wilderness? Because there is no food or water, and our soul is weary with this meager food.” 6 And the Lord sent among the people deadly serpents, and they bit the people, and many people died from among the children of Israel. 7 And, after coming forward, the people said to Moses, “We have sinned because we spoke against the Lord and against you; entreat, therefore, the Lord, and have him remove from us the serpent.” And Moses prayed to the Lord for the people. 8 And the Lord said to Moses, “Make yourself a serpent and set it upon a standard, and it will happen that if a serpent bites a person, anyone who has been bitten, upon looking at it, will live.” 9 And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it upon a standard; and so it happened whenever a serpent bit a person, and he looked upon the bronze serpent, he lived.

The Lexham English Septuagint Chapter 3

3 Solomon began to build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem, at the mountain of Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to his father, David, in the place where David had prepared on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. 2 He began the house in the second month in the fourth year of his dominion.

3 Solomon began these things, to build the house of God. The length in cubits, the first measure, was sixty cubits, and the width twenty cubits. 4 There was an Elam on the front of the house; the length on the front width of the house was twenty cubits, and the height one hundred and twenty cubits. And he covered it on the inside with pure gold. 5 He covered the great house with cedar wood and covered it with pure gold and carved on it palms and chains. 6 He adorned the house with valuable stones for splendor and with gold—gold that was from Parvaim. 7 He covered the house and the walls and the gates and the ceilings and the rooms with gold, and he carved cherubim upon the walls. 8 He made the house of the holy of holies: its length on the face of the width was twenty cubits, and the length was twenty cubits, and he gilded it with pure gold, for the cherubim, to six hundred talents. 9 The weight of the nails: the weight of one was fifty shekels of gold. And he covered the attic with gold. 10 He made in the house for the holy of holies a work of two cherubim from wood, and he covered them with gold. 11 The wings of the cherubim: the length was twenty cubits, and the one wing was five cubits, touching the wall of the house, and the other wing of five cubits was touching the wings of the other cherubim. 13 The wings of the cherubim spanned twenty cubits, and they stood on their feet, and their faces were to the house. 14 He made the curtains hyacinth and purple and scarlet and linen and wove cherubim in it. 15 He made two pillars in front of the wall, thirty-five cubits in height, and their tops five cubits. 16 He made serseroth in the Debir and put them on the tops of the pillars. And he made one hundred pomegranates and placed them on the chalasta. 17 He set the pillars at the face of the temple, one by the right side and one by the left side, and he called the name of the one by the right side Jachin and the name of the one by the left Strength.

The Temple Furnishings

4 He made the bronze altar twenty cubits long, and the breadth was twenty cubits, and the height was ten cubits. 2 He made the cast sea ten cubits, the distribution, being completely round, and the height five cubits, and the circumference thirty cubits. 3 The image of a calf was under it. They circled all around it ten cubits; they surrounded the washing tub completely. They cast two types of calves in their casting, 4 by which they made them, twelve calves: three looking north, three west, three south, and three east. The sea was nearly over them; their hind parts were inside. 5 Its thickness was a handbreadth, and its edge was like the edge of a wine-cup, engraved with shoots of lilies; it contained three thousand in measure, and it was completed. 6 He made ten washing tubs, and he put five on the right and five on the left in order to clean in them the preparations for the whole burnt offerings and to rinse in them, and the sea was for the priests to wash in it. 7 He made ten golden lampstands, according to their decision, and he put them in the temple, five on the right, and five on the left. 8 He made ten tables and put them in the temple, five on the right and five on the left, and he made a hundred golden saucers. 9 Then he made the court of the priests and the great court and doors for the court and their doorways, covered with bronze. 10 He put the sea in a corner of the house on the right, so as to face east. 11 Huram made the meat-hooks and the pieces of wood and the fireplace for the altar and all its implements. And Huram completed doing all the labor that he did for King Solomon in the house of God: 12 two pillars, and upon them balls for the capitals on the top of the two pillars, and two nets to cover the tops of the capitals, which were on the tops of the pillars, 13 and four hundred golden bells for the two nets, and kinds of pomegranates in one net to cover the two balls of the capitals, which were above the pillars. 14 Then he made ten stands, and he made the washing tubs on the stands, 15 and the one sea and the twelve calves underneath it, 16 and the long robe and bowls and kettles and meat-hooks and all their implements, which Huram had made and brought to King Solomon in the house of the Lord, of pure bronze. 17 The king cast them in the region of the Jordan in the thickness of the earth in the house of Succoth and Anamesirdathai. 18 Solomon made all these implements in exceedingly great number, because the weight of the bronze did not fail. 19 Solomon made all the implements of the house of the Lord and the golden altar and the tables—and on them loaves for offering—20 and the lampstands and the lamps of light according to what was decided and ⌊in front⌋ of the Debir, of pure gold, 21 and their snuffers and their lamps and the saucers and the censers and the firesticks, of pure gold, 22 *and the inner door of the house into the holy of holies, to the doors of the house of the temple, of gold. All the labor was completed, which Solomon did in the house of the Lord.

Unfortunately, iconoclasm extends to the denial of the True Presence in the Eucharist. I had a “discussion” with someone online this week about the Eucharist and the True Presence. Because of the brainwashing done by the Reformation and its descendents, of course I made no headway. But they had no real answer to this:

The Eastern/Greek Orthodox Bible: New Testament Chapter 6

48 I am the bread of life! 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread which comes down out of heaven. Its purpose is that anyone may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread which came down out of heaven. Anyone who eats of this bread will live forever! Yes, the bread which I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

52 At this, the Jews disputed with one another, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

53 Jesus therefore said to them, “Amen, amen, I tell you; unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life in yourselves. 54 The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55 For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. 56 The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood dwells in me, and I in him. 57 As the living Father sent me, and [as] I live because of the Father, whoever eats me will also live because of me. 58 This is the bread which came down out of heaven. Unlike your ancestors [who] ate the manna and [still] died, whoever eats this bread will live forever!” 59 He said these things in the synagogue, as he taught in Capernaum.

The disciple’s reactions—Betrayal foretold

60 Therefore, many of his disciples, when they heard this, said, “This is a hard saying! Who can listen to it?”

61 But knowing in himself that his disciples grumbled at this, Jesus said to them, “Does this cause you to stumble? 62 What then if you would see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? 63 It is the spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and [they] are life. 64 But there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him. 65 He said, “For this reason, I have told you that no one can come to me, unless it is given to him by my Father.”

66 At this, many of his disciples left and no longer walked with him. 67 Then Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you also want to leave?”

68 Then Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life! 69 We have come to believe and know that you are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

Christ is truly present in the Eucharist, and if someone says they are Christian and deny the True Presence, “they have no life in them.” A hard truth, but these are the words of Jesus.

Thus, because of such blindness, even in Church History, we had the Iconclast Controversy and the calling of the 7th Ecumenical Council, which we honor today.

The first period of iconoclasm (726–87). Sometime during the 720s the patriarch of Constantinople, Germanos, engaged in correspondence with three hierarchs of the Byzantine Church in Asia Minor concerning the veneration of images. The contents of the patriarch’s letters show that at least one of the hierarchs had gone as far as removing icons from his church. It was the Byzantine emperor Leo III in 726 who took steps to implement an official policy of iconoclasm by removing Christ’s image from the Chalke Gate of the imperial palace. In 730 the emperor issued an edict ordering the destruction of images, and as a result the patriarch Germanos was forced to resign. He was replaced by a new patriarch. Anastasius, who signed the iconoclast decree and thus implicated the ecclesiastical hierarchy in the imperial policy of iconoclasm.

The most important defender of images during the first period of iconoclasm was *John of Damascus (c. 665–749). He may have been asked to undertake the defence of images by the patriarch Germanos. In his Three Orations on the Holy Images he makes explicit reference to the imperial edict of Leo III and to the exile of Germanos. John’s work is the first systematic attempt to develop a theology of Christian image-making, and it remains the definitive statement on the veneration of images in the orthodox tradition.

It was under Leo III’s son, Constantine V, that the policy of iconoclasm became more oppressive. There was considerable persecution of icono phile monks, as Constantine found the monks the most stubborn defenders of icons.

The emperor himself composed several short works concerned with iconoclast theology, two of which are preserved in the writings of the ninth-century iconophile patriarch of Constantinople, Nikephoros. In 754 Constantine assembled a synod in Constantinople in order to secure conciliar endorsement for his iconoclast policy. The Council of Hiereia was attended by 338 bishops—an indication of the extent of Constantine’s influence on the hierarchy of the church. Only the Horos, or definition of faith, of the council of 754 has survived, owing to the fact that it was refuted and incorporated into the proceedings of the Seventh Oecumenical Council of 787. The council of 754 publicly anathematized three iconophiles, including John of Damascus.

When Constantine died in 775 he was succeeded by his son, Leo IV. Leo’s wife Irene became an ardent iconophile, and it was probably due to her influence that iconophile prisoners were released and persecution of the monks ceased. Although the policy of iconoclasm remained official, with an iconoclast patriarch remaining on the throne, Leo IV did not pursue it with anything like the same vigour as his father. When the emperor died in 780 his son Constantine VI was still a minor, and so his mother Irene acted as regent.

With the help of a new patriarch, Tarasios, an iconophile like Irene, she summoned an ecumenical council to overturn the policy of iconoclasm. By this means the Byzantine Church could put its house in order, as well as improve relations with the papacy, which had condemned iconoclasm from the beginning. The Seventh Oecumenical Council met in the church of Hagia Sophia at Nicaea in 787. It was attended by 350 bishops, and theologically the most important part of its proceedings is the sixth session which contains the council’s refutation of the Horos of 754.

Constantine VI ruled as sole emperor from 790 until 797, when he was removed on orders from Irene. The empress herself ruled till 802, when she was in turn overthrown by the emperor Nikephoros I. Nikephoros I seems to have had some sympathy with iconoclasm, but he does not appear to have tried to revive the policy. If was during his reign that the patriarch Nikephoros was appointed, in 806. The emperor Nikephoros I was succeeded by his son-in-law Michael I in 811. The interval between the first and second periods of iconoclasm was an uneasy truce between the two parties. The Seventh Oecumenical Council of 787 succeeded in purging iconoclasm from amongst the ranks of the clergy and the monastic hierarchy, but it does not appear to have had much effect on other adherents of iconoclasm within Byzantine society.[1]

The second period of iconoclasm (813–43). When the emperor Leo V came to the throne in 813 he restored the policy of iconoclasm and ushered in its second phase. He was motivated by the belief that the Byzantine empire had fared better under the iconoclasts of the eighth century. He was supported in this by John the Grammarian, an abbot of a monastery in Constantinople who had once been an icon painter. The emperor engaged in debate with the patriarch Nikephoros in the hope of reaching an accommodation, but Nikephoros refused to compromise over the issue of icons. Part of the compromise involved the patriarch agreeing to the taking down of icons where they were low enough to be kissed and venerated. Eventually the patriarch was deposed and sent into exile, where he wrote several works in defence of images.

With Nikephoros in exile, the mantle of iconophile resistance fell on the shoulders of Theodore the Studite, abbot of the famous Studios monastery in Constantinople. Leo V called a synod in 815 which based its definition of faith largely on that of the earlier iconoclastic council of 754. It repudiated the Seventh Oecumenical Council of 787 and recognized instead the council of 754 as the Seventh Oecumenical Council. The definition of faith of the council of 815 is preserved in the writings of the patriarch Nikephoros. Theodore the Studite was exiled as a result of his opposition to the new iconoclasm, and an iconoclast abbot was appointed to his monastery. Further persecution of iconophile monks and bishops took place, but Theodore continued the iconophile resistance from his place of exile.

The emperor Michael II came to the throne in 821, and tried to place himself above the controversy by recalling the iconophiles from exile. This allowed the return of Theodore the Studite to the capital, but not the restoration of Nikephoros to the patriarchal throne. The emperor suggested that Nikephoros might return if he agreed to remain neutral on the question of images. Theodore the Studite was banished into exile again for refusing to participate in a synod of both parties to discuss the question of images. Michael II appointed an iconoclast to the vacant patriarchal throne, and made John the Grammarian tutor to his son Theophilus.

On the succession of Michael II’s son Theophilus in 829, a fresh wave of persecutions began. Theophilus was a cultured and educated emperor who enjoyed the support of John the Grammarian. The emperor made his former tutor patriarch of Constantinople in 834. In 830 Theophilus married Theodora, who turned out to be a fervent iconophile and who was responsible for the restoration of icons in 843. Several iconoclastic edicts issued during Theophilus’s reign led to the punishment of iconophile monks. The faces of the two brothers Theodore and Theophanes were tattooed with iambic verses, and the hands of the icon painter Lazarus were branded. This persecution may have been prompted by the emperor’s discovery of iconophile sympathies among the women in his household.

When Theophilus died in 842, his widow Theodora became regent for their son Michael III. On the death of Theophilus, the main opponent to the restoration of icons was the patriarch John the Grammarian. Theodora convoked a synod in 843 to restore the veneration of icons with the help of a new iconophile patriarch Methodius. The synod anathematized the iconoclasts and affirmed the teaching of the Fathers of the Seventh Oecumenical Council of 787. It was in 843 that the ‘Feast of the Triumph of Orthodoxy’ was established on the first Sunday in Lent, a feast which is still celebrated in the Orthodox Church.

Various suggestions have been made concerning the motivations for iconoclasm amongst Byzantine emperors in the eighth and ninth centuries, none of which are fully satisfactory. The loss of so much territory to the Arabs in the seventh century may well have led the iconoclast emperors to see in the aniconic culture of Islam a means of reasserting Byzantine imperial power. The presence of this rival religion provided, if not the initial impetus, then at least an abiding stimulus for the debate about images in Byzantium.[2]

Is Iconoclasm Dead?

Reformation Era

The first iconoclastic wave happened in Wittenberg in the early 1520s under reformers Thomas Müntzer and Andreas Karlstadt, in the absence of Martin Luther, who then, concealed under the pen-name of 'Junker Jörg', intervened to calm things down. Luther argued that the mental picturing of Christ when reading the Scriptures was similar in character to artistic renderings of Christ.[18]

In contrast to the Lutherans who favoured certain types of sacred art in their churches and homes,[19][20] the Reformed (Calvinist) leaders, in particular Andreas Karlstadt, Huldrych Zwingli and John Calvin, encouraged the removal of religious images by invoking the Decalogue's prohibition of idolatry and the manufacture of graven (sculpted) images of God.[20] As a result, individuals attacked statues and images, most famously in the beeldenstorm across the Netherlands in 1566. However, in most cases, civil authorities removed images in an orderly manner in the newly Reformed Protestant cities and territories of Europe.

Calvinist Iconoclasm during the Reformation

The belief of iconoclasm caused havoc throughout Europe. In 1523, specifically due to the Swiss reformer Huldrych Zwingli, a vast number of his followers viewed themselves as being involved in a spiritual community that in matters of faith should obey neither the visible Church nor lay authorities. According to Peter George Wallace "Zwingli's attack on images, at the first debate, triggered iconoclastic incidents in Zurich and the villages under civic jurisdiction that the reformer was unwilling to condone." Due to this action of protest against authority, "Zwingli responded with a carefully reasoned treatise that men could not live in society without laws and constraint."[23]

Significant iconoclastic riots took place in Basel (in 1529), Zurich (1523), Copenhagen (1530), Münster (1534), Geneva (1535), Augsburg (1537), Scotland (1559), Rouen (1560), and Saintes and La Rochelle (1562).[24][25] Calvinist iconoclasm in Europe "provoked reactive riots by Lutheran mobs" in Germany and "antagonized the neighbouring Eastern Orthodox" in the Baltic region.[26]

The Seventeen Provinces (now the Netherlands, Belgium, and parts of Northern France) were disrupted by widespread Calvinist iconoclasm in the summer of 1566.[27] This period, known as the Beeldenstorm, began with the destruction of the statuary of the Monastery of Saint Lawrence in Steenvoorde after a "Hagenpreek," or field sermon, by Sebastiaan Matte on 10 August 1566; by October the wave of furor had gone all through the Spanish Netherlands up to Groningen. Hundreds of other attacks included the sacking of the Monastery of Saint Anthony after a sermon by Jacob de Buysere. The Beeldenstorm marked the start of the revolution against the Spanish forces and the Catholic Church.

During the Reformation in England, which started during the reign of Anglican monarch Henry VIII, and was urged on by reformers such as Hugh Latimer and Thomas Cranmer, limited official action was taken against religious images in churches in the late 1530s. Henry's young son, Edward VI, came to the throne in 1547 and, under Cranmer's guidance, issued injunctions for Religious Reforms in the same year and in 1550, an Act of Parliament "for the abolition and putting away of divers books and images." During the English Civil War, Bishop Joseph Hall of Norwich described the events of 1643 when troops and citizens, encouraged by a Parliamentary ordinance against superstition and idolatry, behaved thus:

Lord what work was here! What clattering of glasses! What beating down of walls! What tearing up of monuments! What pulling down of seats! What wresting out of irons and brass from the windows! What defacing of arms! What demolishing of curious stonework! What tooting and piping upon organ pipes! And what a hideous triumph in the market-place before all the country, when all the mangled organ pipes, vestments, both copes and surplices, together with the leaden cross which had newly been sawn down from the Green-yard pulpit and the service-books and singing books that could be carried to the fire in the public market-place were heaped together.

[1] Parry, K. (2000). Iconoclast Controversy. In The dictionary of historical theology (pp. 268–269). Carlisle, Cumbria, U.K.: Paternoster Press. [2] Parry, K. (2000). Iconoclast Controversy. In The dictionary of historical theology (p. 269). Carlisle, Cumbria, U.K.: Paternoster Press.

Iconoclasm Today

We find iconoclasm, in many forms, still prevalent in our world today. Catholics and Orthodox are regularly accused of idolatry today, and say we worship our icons and our statues. (All the while, you will find paintings, drawings, etc., mainly of Christ, adorning the walls of their homes, in their religious books, and so on.) As I said earlier, iconoclasm includes denial of the True Presence in the Eucharist. For them, bread and wine are a “memorial” or a “symbol.” Again, from Fr. Freeman: “The consistent agreement of the early Church was to treat these words as descriptions of reality. There were no theories explaining the words “body” and “blood” as symbolic or somehow less than true. They were not mental concepts about the bread and wine, but words that truly and accurately describe what is given in the Eucharist.” … “Thus the sacraments of the Church are not symbols in the modern sense of something that stands for something else—something that is not really there. Rather, they are symbols in the classical sense: two things that are brought together in a single reality. The very word symbolos in Greek means “to throw two things together.” Interestingly, the opposite of symbolos in Greek is diabolos, which means “to divide.” Thus, they mis-use the word “symbol,” denying its true meaning.

Also, Iconoclasm is also a denial of life. In Genesis, God says, “And God said, “Let us make mankind according to our image and according to our likeness...”. Thus, human beings are in the image of God. As a result, the ultimate iconoclasm today is abortion, for it is denial of our origin in God, our worth in God, and our purpose of God. Anyone who supports abortion is, then, a heretic, and I do use that word deliberately. If they deny that creation from God, they are not from God.

So, why do we celebrate this Council and these Fathers? The above should be enough. If this Council did not take place, true Christianity would be gone today, and I am not being hyperbolic about this.