Synodicon of Orthodoxy - Part 2

Well, I am awake with an upset stomach and thought i would carpe some diem before my wife and sons awake.

It occured to me after my last post on this subject that I mentioned the 1583 meeting where three patriarchs signed the Synodicon but I did not really explain when the 7th Ecumenical Counci was, nor why it was. I'd like to rectify that now.

Holy Icons were a part of Christianity from the beginning, even from the Old Testament Period, if you want to count the images of angels in the Tabernacle and the Temple. In the New Testament period we can see the presence and influence of Icons from the earliest days of the Church (not an exhaustive list):
1. A woman healed by Jesus erected a statue in his honor (mentioned in Eusebius' 4th century History of the Church)
2. Iconography is present in the earliest of the Roman catacombs
4. St. john's vision of the Image of the beast makes no sense unless it is understood as a perversion of a Holy Icon: There is Jesus and there are Icons of Jesus. THere will be an antichrist and there will be an icon of the antichrist.
3. St Luke painted some of the first Icons.

In the the 8th century Iconoclasm, a variation of the old Monophysite heresy gained the ear of Emperor Leo III (716-741). The Iconoclasts, without going into to much detail (If you want the detail go here.), killed many Christians, destroyed thousands of Icons and kept the Church in turmoil for about a century.
In short, this is how it happened:

1. There was a persecution of Orthodox Christians by the Iconoclast heretics from about 716 to 780
2. There was the 7th Ecumenical Council (called Nicea II) in 787 that affirmed that the Iconoclasts were heretics and that God did indeed become a real live flesh and blood human being
3. There was another persecution from 814 to 842
4. And finally in 842 Empress theodora reepealed the Iconoclst laws, asked the heretic Patriarch of Constantinopleto retire, and convened a local synod in Constatinople which affirmed the decree of the 7th Council Ecumenical Council. It is this 842 reaffirmation of the 787 decree that was re-affirmed in 1583. Iconoclasm still remains as a heresy today (no heresy totally goes away. There are still gnostics, modalists, and arians today, too.) but has never gained so much power as it had in the 8th and 9th centuries. (England had a hideous bout of Iconoclasm in the 16th century, but that was a protestant/catholic thing. The Orthodox had been gone from England since the end of the 11th century, though we are back now.)

Now that this history portion is complete, I will get back to reading and trying to understand the text of the Synodicon in the next post of this series.