Yesterday we celebrated the end of the heresy of Iconoclasm. After centuries of controversy and debate, the Church put this bitter issue to rest, supposedly once and for all, declaring in Ecumenical Council that to kiss an icon or bow before it or carry it in procession is not worship. Not worship. NOT. And icons were to be restored, the official decree mandated, to churches lacking them.
The Church resolved this question, folks, in the year 843! So why are some people still scandalized about kissing an icon, or bowing before it, or carrying it aloft in processions? Why is this controversy, this officially condemned heresy, still alive and well today? Are people ignorant of history? Or do they think they know better than an Ecumenical Council? What is it?
Monday, March 9, 2009
Iconoclasm
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4 comments:
Yes, ignorant of history. I went to "Bible College" for 2 years and never heard of the Church Councils, the Orthoxdox Church, or any part of Eastern Christianity.
Thank you, Monica, for answering my question. It wasn't rhetorical, either; I really did want to know.
Some of my readers, though, just can't possibly be that ignorant. I mean, the iconoclasm controversy was one of the worst traumas the Church has ever had to endure.
Sigh...
I went to Catholic school, and though we learned a lot about the Councils, the Middle Ages, and the Reformation/CounterReformation, we never even touched on Iconoclasm.
Thanks, Tad.
My goodness. Bible College and Catholic school, and no mention of iconoclasm. Boggles the mind.
But then, when I said the Iconcoclastic Controversy was one of the worst traumas the Church has ever had to endure, of course I was forgetting that in the West, there was the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, more recent and at least as traumatic.
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