Synaxis Holy Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council

The Seventh Ecumenical Council, also called the Second Council of Nicaea, met in 787 against iconoclasm, which had been promoted by the emperors Leo III and Constantine V and endorsed by the iconoclast council of Hieria in 754. Empress Irene, ruling for her young son Constantine VI, favoured the icons; St Tarasius became Patriarch of Constantinople in 784, and Pope Adrian I sent two legates.

A first attempt to open the council in Constantinople in August 786 was broken up by iconoclast soldiers, so it was moved to Nicaea. Under Patriarch Tarasius seven sessions were held there from 24 September to 13 October 787, and the final session took place on 23 October in the Magnaura palace in Constantinople in the presence of Irene and Constantine VI. More than three hundred bishops signed the definition; tradition speaks of 367 fathers.

The council decreed that icons of Christ, the Mother of God, the angels and the saints be set up like the image of the Cross and honoured with veneration, not with the worship due to God alone, since the honour paid to the image passes to its prototype. It rejected the council of 754 and adopted 22 canons. After a second wave of iconoclasm its decisions were confirmed in 843, the Triumph of Orthodoxy. The Russian Church commemorates the fathers on the Sunday nearest to 11 (24) October.