The Reception of Nicaea II in the Latin West

In recent months I’ve increasingly heard the claim that the Latin West initially resisted the Council of Nicaea II before embracing it a few centuries after the fact. Usually, it’s traditional Anglicans making this claim because, presumably, they don’t want to fall under the same condemnation that they pronounced over the Anabaptists who departed from the received faith of their “catholic” episcopate. In other words, it seems to me that many Anglicans would feel uncomfortable if Nicaea II met the exact same criteria for an “Ecumenical Council” that the first Six Councils did (save, in their minds, orthodoxy), due to it being repudiated by the Thirty-Nine Articles. However, even the late Pope Benedict XVI expressed a similar sentiment about the West never fully embracing Nicaea II, at least in practice,¹ and so this claim is indeed worth taking seriously. 

Regardless of motivation, hearing this claim from several different sources made me curious about the actual canonical status of Nicaea II in the pre-schism Latin West, especially because this subject has much overlap with the historic debates between Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism (something I would say I’m fairly well educated on). As such, what follows is the result of my research into the western reception of Nicaea II, wherein I end up disagreeing with our Anglican friends and seeking to demonstrate, contrary to their claim, that Nicaea II had a real canonical status in the West long before the Great Schism. With that, let’s begin the timeline. 

The Iconoclast controversy “officially” began in the year 726 when the Emperor Leo III issued an imperial edict requiring the destruction of holy icons. Naturally, this caused riots in the streets of Constantinople, and Patriarch St. Germanus led a protest against the imperial edict and sought assistance from the head of the Western Church, Pope St. Gregory II. Soon before Leo deposed St. Germanus and replaced him with an Iconoclast patriarch, St. Gregory already convened a Synod in Rome (+727) that formally condemned Iconoclasm as a heresy.² The pope then sent two letters to Leo, wherein he defended the practice of venerating icons and called the Emperor to “repent” and “turn to the truth which thou hast forsaken.” St. Gregory even stated that “all the West” agreed with him on this matter, and “should you [Leo] send any here for the destruction of St. Peter’s image–see–we warn you before hand; we are free from the blood which may be shed on the occasion.”³ 

Just a few years after this, St. Gregory’s successor, Pope St. Gregory III, held yet another Synod in Rome (+731) that excommunicated all who condemned the veneration of icons and sought to destroy them.⁴ It’s also worth noting that St. Gregory III instituted the Feast of All Saints during this period to highlight his theological convictions.⁵ Decades later, when heretics in the East held the pseudo-Synod of Hieria to try and condemn the creation and veneration of images, Pope Stephen III (+769) declared this Synod to have absolutely no authority since it contradicted the catholic faith already laid down by his predecessors, and he condemned its teachings as heretical.⁶ I would like to pause here for just a moment and point out how, we’re still a few decades prior to the very convocation of the Council of Nicaea II, and the Latin West has already condemned Iconoclasm on three separate occasions! This provides important context for the way in which the Western Church, represented by her Mother, Rome, approached what we now know as the Seventh Ecumenical Council. 

Orthodox believers in the East could not formally respond to the Iconoclast heresy until an Iconophile ruler succeeded the throne in Constantinople, which finally happened under Empress St. Irene. Once she had (at least part of) the throne, the Byzantines could finally appeal to the West for a truly Ecumenical refutation of Iconoclasm, which happened with Pope Hadrian I sending his legates to the Council of Nicaea II (+787). This Council, which simply reiterated the anathemas that Rome had subscribed to for the previous fifty years with the authority of four different popes, was received by the entire catholic episcopate, represented by the heads of all Churches that had affirmed the previous Six Councils: Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem. 

Once news of an Ecumenical decision on this matter spread to the Frankish Kingdom, however, they did not take it well. As our Anglican friends are quick to point out, in the year 794 the Franks held a Synod in Frankfurt that attempted to refute and repudiate what was decreed at Nicaea II. This Synod’s teachings, and other writings from Carolingian theologians, were eventually compiled into the infamous Libri Carolini, which was (to my knowledge) one of the West’s most comprehensive engagements with Byzantine theology prior to the Great Schism. And this attempted refutation of Iconodulia (the doctrine of Nicaea II) was backed by the authority of the Emperor Charlemagne. 

Although there were a number of voices who spoke out against this Frankish-Iconoclastic heresy, such as the Abbot Theodemir and Hincmar of Reims,⁷ it was Pope Hadrian I’s opposition that had the most gravitas. It is true that his legates had attended the pseudo-Synod of Frankfurt and did not oppose its heresy, however upon finding this out Hadrian declared its rulings to be utterly null and void. Hadrian then defended Nicaea II by writing a letter to Charlemagne wherein he declared icon veneration to be “the old tradition of the holy, catholic, apostolic, and Roman Church” and “the pristine doctrine of our predecessors, the holy Pontiffs.”⁸ In other words, Hadrian nullified the Synod of Frankfurt because, in his mind, the matter had already long been settled in the West. The Franks had no more authority to oppose Nicaea II at the Synod of Frankfurt than the followers of Arius did to oppose Nicaea I at the Synod of Sirmium (+357).

Indeed, one truly wonders how the Frankish opponents to Nicaea II dealt with their own cognitive dissonance. As the Libri Carolini itself attests, the Franks believed that true Christians “are careful to follow the See of Blessed Peter in all things, as they desire thither to arrive where he sits as keeper of the keys. To which blessedness may he who deigned to found his Church upon Peter bring us, and make us to persevere in the unity of the holy Church; and may we merit a place in that Kingdom of Heaven through the intervention of him whose See we follow and to whom have been given the keys.”⁹ The Franks at least professed that the See of Rome had the final say on the question of whether or not icon veneration was orthodox, and yet according to the holders of that See from St. Gregory II to Hadrian I, this was a closed question. Thus, if we adhere to the Franks’ own standards of canonical authority, we are forced to agree with the papal nullification of Frankfurt +794.

The dogmatic status of icon veneration was later reiterated by Pope John VIII (+872-82) who sent a re-translated copy of the acts of Nicaea II to the Frankish Church for them to accept,¹⁰ and then once again anathematized all opponents of Iconodulia at the “Photian Councils” of Constantinople +869 and +879.¹¹ By the time we get to the late 11th century, when many of our Anglican friends believe the West “finally” embraced Nicaea II, you do have Pope Alexander II condemning Jocelin of Bordeaux for having Iconoclastic beliefs,¹² however he was only following in the steps of all the Pontiffs who had gone before him. This is why the precise “Ecumenical status” of Nicaea II was never really a big deal to the West, because there was never any question that icon veneration was the orthodox faith that had always been preached at Rome. From the very beginning of the Iconoclast controversy even until today, one could not be in communion with the Patriarchate of the West without affirming the orthodoxy of Iconodulia. 

In sum, Nicaea II not only did not take “centuries” to become binding in the West, but, in fact, the content of its anathemas had been in effect in the West for decades prior to Nicaea II even being held! The heads of the Western Church unceasingly condemned and excommunicated everyone who refused to venerate holy icons both before and after Nicaea II, just as they had done to the heretics of ages past. Protestants, of course, have the epistemic option to say that the Western Church was just in error, and orthodoxy was only preserved in a holy Frankish remnant for about a century before even that was stamped out, however what they cannot say is that Nicaea II doesn’t meet the very criteria (save, in their minds, orthodoxy) used to designate the previous Six Councils as “Ecumenical.”

1. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy, 2000. Ignatius Press, pp. 133-134.

2. Hieromonk Enoch, “Letters of Pope St. Gregory II (+731) to Emperor Leo Against Heresy of Iconoclasm,” 2017. Retrieved from https://nftu.net/letters-of-pope-st-gregory-ii-731-to-emperor-leo-against-heresy-of-iconoclasm/

3. Ibid., “First Letter of Gregory the Second, Pope of Rome, to the Emperor Leo, in Defence of Images.”

4. Adrian Fortescue, “Iconoclasm,” in The Catholic Encyclopedia. Retrieved from https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07620a.htm

5. Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy, p. 132.

6. Erick Ybarra, The Papacy: Revisiting the Debate Between Catholics and Orthodox, 2022, Emmaus Road Publishing, p. 554.

7. Fortescue, “Iconoclasm.”

8. Scott Butler and John Collorafi, Keys Over the Christian World: The Evidence for Papal Authority (33 AD – 800 AD) from Ancient Latin, Greek, Chaldean, Syriac, Armenian, Coptic and Ethiopian Documents, 2021, Catholic Apologetics International Publishing, Inc., p. 382

9. NPNF, Vol. 15, 580.

10. Fortescue, “Iconoclasm.”

11. Fourth Council of Constantinople: 869-870, Canon 7. John VIII only reversed his condemnation of Photius by approving Constantinople +879, not any other aspect of +869, thereby upholding the canonical status of image veneration in the West. See Ybarra, The Papacy, pp. 609-610.

12. Fortescue, “Iconoclasm.”