Auxentius, opposite Constantinople (called "the new Stephanus," to distinguish him from the
proto-martyr). The emperor made even an attempt to abolish the convents.^542
§ 102. The Restoration of Image-Worship by the Seventh Oecumenical Council, 787.
Leo IV., called Chazarus (775–780), kept up the laws against images, though with more
moderation. But his wife Irene of Athens distinguished for beauty, talent, ambition and intrigue,
was at heart devoted to image-worship, and after his death and during the minority of her son
Constantine VI. Porphyrogenitus, labored with shrewdness and perseverance for its restoration
(780–802). At first she proclaimed toleration to both parties, which she afterwards denied to the
iconoclasts. She raised the persecuted monks to the highest dignities, and her secretary, Tarasius,
to the patriarchal throne of Constantinople, with the consent of Pope Hadrian, who was willing to
overlook the irregularity of the sudden election of a layman in prospect of his services to orthodoxy.
She removed the iconoclastic imperial guard, and replaced it by one friendly to her views.
But the crowning measure was an oecumenical council, which alone could set aside the
authority of the iconoclastic council of 754. Her first attempt to hold such a council at Constantinople
in 786 completely failed. The second attempt, owing to more careful preparations, succeeded.
Irene convened the seventh oecumenical council in the year 787, at Nicaea, which was less
liable to iconoclastic disturbances than Constantinople, yet within easy reach of the court, and
famous as the seat of the first and weightiest oecumenical council. It was attended by about three
hundred and fifty bishops,^543 under the presidency of Tarasius, and held only eight sessions from
September 24 to October 23, the last in the imperial palace of Constantinople. Pope Hadrian I. sent
two priests, both called Peter, whose names stand first in the Acts. The three Eastern patriarchs,
who were subject to the despotic rule of the Saracens, could not safely leave their homes; but two
Eastern monks, John, and Thomas, who professed to be syncelli of two of these patriarchs and to
have an accurate knowledge of the prevailing orthodoxy of Egypt and Syria, were allowed to sit
and vote in the place of those dignitaries, although they had no authority from them, and were sent
simply by a number of their fellow-monks.^544
The Nicene Council nullified the decrees of the iconoclastic Synod of Constantinople, and
solemnly sanctioned a limited worship (proskynesis) of images.^545
(^542) On these persecutions see, besides Theophanes, the Acta Sanct. of the Bolland. for Oct., Tom. VIII. 124 sqq. (publ.
Brussels, 1853), and Hefele, III. 421-428.
(^543) The accounts vary between 330 and 367. The Acts are signed by 308 bishops and episcopal representatives. Nicephorus,
the almost contemporaneous patriarch of Constantinople, in a letter to Leo III., mentions only 150. See Hefele, III. 460.
(^544) Theodore of the Studium, himself a zealous advocate of image-worship, exposes this trick, and intimates that the
council was not strictly oecumenical, although he sometimes gives it that name. The question connected with these two
irresponsible monks is discussed with his usual minuteness and prolixity by Walch, X. 551-558. See also Neander, III. 228,
and Hefele, III. 459.
545
The definition (ο ρος) sanctions theἀσπασμὸς καὶ τιμητικὴ προσκύνησις, osculum (or salutatio) et honoraria
adoratio, but notἀληθινὴ λατρεία ἡ πρέπει μόνη τη̑ θεία φύσει, vera latria, quae solam divinam naturam decet. Mansi, XIII.
378 sq. The term Gr. ajpasmov" embraces salutation and kiss, theπροσκύνησις, bowing the knee, and other demonstrations of
reverence, see p. 450.