Second Council of Nicaea

(noun)

This council reversed the decrees of the Council of Hieria and restored image worship, marking the end of the First Byzantine Iconoclasm.

Related Terms

Examples of Second Council of Nicaea in the following topics:

  • Iconoclasm in Byzantium

    • The "Second Iconoclasm" was between 814 CE and 842 CE.
    • In 754 CE Constantine summoned the first ecumenical council concerned with religious imagery, the Council of Hieria, which 340 bishops attended.
    • On behalf of the church, the council endorsed an iconoclast position and declared image worship to be blasphemy.
    • After Leo IV too died, Irene called another ecumenical council, the Second Council of Nicaea, in 787 CE that reversed the decrees of the previous iconoclast council and restored image worship, marking the end of the First Iconoclasm restored image worship.
    • Emperor Leo V the Armenian instituted a second period of Iconoclasm in 814 CE, again possibly motivated by military failures seen as indicators of divine displeasure.

  • The Catholic Church

    • The history of the Catholic Church begins with the teachings of Jesus Christ, who lived in the 1st century CE in the province of Judea of the Roman Empire.
    • In 380, under Emperor Theodosius I, Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire by the decree of the emperor, which would persist until the fall of the Western Empire, and later with the Eastern Roman Empire until the fall of Constantinople.
    • The 496 conversion of Clovis I, pagan king of the Franks, saw the beginning of a steady rise of the Catholic faith in the West.
    • Empress Irene, siding with the pope, called for an Ecumenical Council.
    • In 787, the fathers of the Second Council of Nicaea "warmly received the papal delegates and his message."

  • The Great Schism of 1054

    • Prominent among these were the issues of the source of the Holy Spirit, whether leavened or unleavened bread should be used in the Eucharist, the Bishop of Rome's claim to universal jurisdiction, and the place of the See of Constantinople in relation to the Pentarchy.
    • The Western church remained firmly in support of the use of religious images.
    • Regent Irene convened the Second Council of Nicaea in 787 CE, which temporarily restored image worship, in an attempt to soothe the strained relations between Constantinople and Rome—but it was too late.
    • The main purpose of the papal legation was to seek help from the Byzantine Emperor in view of the Norman conquest of southern Italy and to deal with recent attacks by Leo of Ohrid against the use of unleavened bread and other Western customs, attacks that had the support of Cerularius.
    • On the refusal of Cerularius to accept the demand, the leader of the legation, Cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida, excommunicated him, and in return Cerularius excommunicated Humbert and the other legates.

  • The Eastern Roman Empire, Constantine the Great, and Byzantium

    • In 330, he founded Constantinople as a second Rome on the site of Byzantium, which was well-positioned astride the trade routes between East and West; it was a superb base from which to guard the Danube river, and was reasonably close to the Eastern frontiers.
    • The reign of Constantine established a precedent for the position of the emperor as having great influence and ultimate regulatory authority within the religious discussions involving the early Christian councils of that time, e.g., most notably the dispute over Arianism, and the nature of God.
    • One way in which Constantine used his influence over the early Church councils was to seek to establish a consensus over the oft debated and argued issue over the nature of God.
    • In 325 he summoned the Council of Nicaea, effectively the first Ecumenical Council.
    • The Council of Nicaea is most known for its dealing with Arianism and for instituting the Nicene Creed, which is still used today by Christians.

  • The Last Byzantine Dynasty

    • Following the Fourth Crusade, the Byzantine Empire had fractured into the Greek successor-states of Nicaea, Epirus and Trebizond, with a multitude of Frankish and Latin possessions occupying the remainder, nominally subject to the Latin Emperors at Constantinople.
    • At the Battle of Meander Valley, a Turkic force was repelled and an earlier assault on Nicaea led to the death of the Seljuk Sultan.
    • In 1261, the Empire of Nicaea was ruled by John IV Laskaris, a boy of ten years.
    • In 1259 CE, Michael VIII came to the throne of the Empire of Nicaea.
    • With a decreasing source of food and manpower, the Palaiologoi were forced to fight on several fronts, most of them being Christian states: the Second Bulgarian Empire, the Serbian Empire, the remnants of the Latin Empire and even the Knights Hospitaller.

  • The First Crusade

    • An outbreak of ergotism had also occurred just before the Council of Clermont.
    • After crossing into Asia Minor, the crusaders split up and began to plunder the countryside, wandering into Seljuq territory around Nicaea, where they were massacred by an overwhelming group of Turks.
    • The first object of their campaign was Nicaea, previously a city under Byzantine rule, but which had become the capital of the Seljuq Sultanate of Rum under Kilij Arslan I.
    • Subsequently, upon the Crusaders' arrival, the city was subjected to a lengthy siege, and when Arslan had word of it he rushed back to Nicaea and attacked the Crusader army on May 16.
    • On July 22, a council was held in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to establish a king for the newly created Kingdom of Jerusalem.

  • The Fourth Crusade

    • As a result of the First Crusade, four primary Crusader states were created: the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the County of Edessa, the Principality of Antioch, and the County of Tripoli.
    • The loss of Edessa in 1144 to Imad ad-Din Zengi led to preaching for what subsequently became known as the Second Crusade.
    • Bernard of Clairvaux, who had encouraged the Second Crusade in his preachings, was upset with the violence and slaughter directed toward the Jewish population of the Rhineland.
    • Byzantine resistance based in unconquered sections of the empire such as Nicaea, Trebizond, and Epirus ultimately recovered Constantinople in 1261.
    • The attempt failed, however, as the vast majority of Greek civilians and a growing part of their clergy refused to recognize and accept the short-lived near-union of the churches of East and West signed at the Council of Florence and Ferrara by the Ecumenical patriarch Joseph II of Constantinople.

  • Timeline

    • Much of religious prehistory and the chronology of religious art history is subject to ongoing debates due to the nature of evidence.
    • 70 BCE: Siege of Jerusalem and the Destruction of the Temple.
    • 7 BCE - 36 CE: The approximate time frame for the life of Jesus of Nazareth, the central figure of Christianity.
    • 325 CE: The first Ecumenical Council, the Council of Nicaea, is convened to attain a consensus on doctrine through an assembly representing all of Christendom.
    • 650: The verses of the Qur'an are compliled in the form of a book in the era of Uthman RA, the third Caliph of Islam.

  • The Emperor Irene

    • Irene of Athens, the first woman Emperor of the Byzantine Empire, fought for recognition as Imperial leader throughout her rule and is best known for the ending of Iconoclasm in the Eastern Church.
    • Although she was an orphan, her uncle or cousin Constantine Sarantapechos was a patrician and was possibly the strategos of the theme of Hellas at the end of the 8th century.
    • Irene's most notable act was the restoration of the veneration of icons, thereby ending the first Iconoclasm of the Eastern Church.
    • Having chosen Tarasios, one of her partisans and her former secretary, as Patriarch of Constantinople in 784, she summoned two church councils.
    • The second, convened at Nicaea in 787, formally revived the veneration of icons and reunited the Eastern church with that of Rome.

  • The Crusades

    • A dramatic collapse of the empire's position on the eve of the Council of Clermont brought Byzantium to the brink of disaster.
    • Alexios was worried about the advances of the Seljuqs, who had reached as far west as Nicaea, not far from Constantinople.
    • In March 1095, Alexios sent envoys to the Council of Piacenza to ask Pope Urban II for aid against the Turks.
    • His travels there culminated in the Council of Clermont in November, where, according to the various speeches attributed to him, he gave an impassioned sermon to a large audience of French nobles and clergy, graphically detailing the fantastical atrocities being committed against pilgrims and eastern Christians.
    • Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont, where he gave speeches in favor of a Crusade.