AD 787

Second Council of Nicaea

Second Council of Nicaea defines the veneration of icons

The council's Definition did not merely permit icons in churches. It named images for houses, and for the roadside.

Nicaea, autumn 787

The council opened on 24 September 787 in the Church of Holy Wisdom at Nicaea. Patriarch Tarasios addressed the assembly, and three formerly iconoclast bishops were reinstated that first day after reading professions of faith.

Across seven formal sessions the assembly read Pope Adrian I's letters, reconciled further repentant bishops, gathered patristic arguments for images and refuted the iconoclast Council of Hieria of 754.

It met at Nicaea at all because an earlier attempt at Constantinople in 786 had been broken up by iconoclast soldiers; Irene, regent for her son Constantine VI, reconvened it once the hostile guard was replaced.

Signed without recorded debate

At the seventh session, on 13 October, the bishops read and signed the council's doctrinal Definition without any debate recorded in the Acts.

The Definition ordered sacred images of Christ, Mary, angels, saints and holy people to be displayed in churches, on vessels and vestments, in homes and beside roads.

It distinguished honorable reverence toward an image from the true worship reserved to the divine nature, explaining that honor shown to an image passes to the person represented.

Carried back, then reversed

Tarasios immediately dispatched bishops, monks and clergy to Constantinople to explain the proceedings and decrees to Constantine VI and Irene.

The council also issued 22 disciplinary canons, reaching well beyond art to relics in altars, clerical finances, monasteries and episcopal discipline.

The settlement held less than three decades: Byzantine iconoclasm was imposed a second time from 815 to 843.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 6 sources not yet audited Date corrected

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet and rewritten from that sheet. This article has not yet had an independent model audit. How the pipeline works →

Date corrected. The research places this at 0787-10-13.

What the sources leave uncertain

The secure date for the doctrinal decision is 13 October 787; the council itself began on 24 September.
A ceremonial imperial reception at Constantinople on 23 October is often called an eighth session, but the modern critical edition presents seven formal sessions at Nicaea and treats the Constantinople event as reception of the decrees.
Attendance figures vary substantially in older accounts—roughly 330 to 367—so no single exact bishop count should be treated as secure.
Pope Adrian sent no surviving formal letter acknowledging the completed council, apparently because his territorial demands were not met. His representatives participated, however, and his defense of the council in 794 demonstrates acceptance of its doctrinal decision.