A Cross-Necklace?: The Second Council of Nicaea

The Councils and Why They Matter, Part 4

Being a pastor is a deeply enriching lifestyle. Trust me, you are exposed to situations you would never have imagined.

A few years ago, I had an interesting conversation with a family over a cross-necklace. That’s right—a cross-necklace.

To make a long story short, the young daughter in the family had been given a cross-necklace. In her prayer time, she had begun to hold on to this necklace as a means to, in her words, draw closer to Jesus in the prayer.

The father, however, was not having it. He viewed this as the worship of an object.

Naturally, a fight ensued over a cross-necklace. Guess where they ended up? My office!

This incident reminded me of the Second Council of Nicaea—a battle over worship.

The Battle Over Worship

Worship is a big deal. It always has been and always will be. But it’s also one of those things that, throughout church history, has been incredibly divisive.

What’s the right way to worship? What’s the wrong way? Where do we draw the line between reverence and idolatry?

That last question? It started one of the most heated controversies in church history—a debate so intense that it led to excommunications, riots, and even physical destruction.

And at the center of it all were icons—or a symbol representing Christ.

The Second Council of Nicaea (787 AD) was called to settle one of the most significant worship-related battles in church history—should Christians use images and icons in worship? Or is that idolatry?

The Controversy That Split the Church

In 726 AD, Emperor Leo III ordered the destruction of a famous image of Christ in Constantinople. His reasoning? Icons are idols.

To him, people were bowing down to images, kissing them, and praying before them—and that looked an awful lot like breaking the second commandment…

"You shall not make for yourself a carved image… You shall not bow down to them or serve them." (Exodus 20:4-5, ESV)

Leo and his followers, known as the Iconoclasts (icon-breakers), believed that using religious images in worship was dangerous. They saw it as a slippery slope toward pagan idolatry, and they weren’t about to let it slide.

So, they started destroying icons all over the empire.

[[ For what it’s worth, imagine walking into church one Sunday and finding the cross, paintings, and stained-glass windows torn down and burned. That’s how intense this got. ]]

However, not everyone agreed with Leo’s decision. The Iconodules (icon-venerators) fought back, arguing that images weren’t idols—they were simply aids for worship.

For them, icons weren’t about worshiping the image itself but about honoring the reality behind it. When they looked at an image of Christ, they weren’t worshiping paint and wood—they were being reminded of the Incarnation, of God taking on flesh.

This wasn’t just a theological debate; it became a full-blown cultural and political crisis. So, in 787 AD, the church called the Second Council of Nicaea to settle it once and for all.

The Second Council of Nicaea

The goal of this council was, uh, simple (sarcasm alert)—to define, once and for all, whether or not icons belonged in Christian worship.

The council carefully examined Scripture, church tradition, and the theology of the Incarnation before making its final decision.

In the end, they ruled in favor of icons.

Their argument was simple:

Since Jesus took on human flesh, it was okay to depict him in human form. In the Old Testament, making images of God was forbidden because God had not been seen. But now, through Jesus, God had made himself visible.

So, as long as images were being venerated (another way of saying honored), not worshiped, they were not idolatry.

Their ruling stated that…

• Icons are to be respected and venerated but not worshiped.

• Worship belongs to God alone.

• Destroying icons is an attack on the truth of the Incarnation.

And with that, the Iconodules won the debate. But here’s the thing… the fight wasn’t over. Blah!

Why This Matters Today

The decision at The Second Council of Nicaea shaped how Christians approach art, imagery, and worship to this day. But the tension was that it never really disappeared.

First, this controversy was one of the early cracks in the divide between Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism. The East (Orthodox) embraced icons heavily, while the West (Catholic) took a more cautious approach.

Second, the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s revived this debate all over again. Reformers like John Calvin and Ulrich Zwingli argued that even veneration of images was too close to idolatry. Many Protestant churches rejected religious images altogether, stripping churches bare of statues, paintings, and icons.

Third, this debate still pops up today—just in different forms. Have you ever heard someone say, “Worship should be simple? No distractions. No fancy decorations. Just God’s Word.”? That’s an echo of the Iconoclast movement.

Have you ever heard someone say, “Beauty in worship helps us focus on God?” That’s an echo of the Iconodules.

Both sides are still alive in the church today. Both sides wrestle with the same question…Where do we draw the line between honoring God and distracting from him?

Hopefully, That Made Sense

At its core, The Second Council of Nicaea wasn’t just about paintings and statues. It was about what it means to worship rightly.

Their decision wasn’t a license to worship images but a recognition that Christ’s humanity made it possible to depict him without dishonoring him.

And that’s still relevant today.

Whether it’s icons, crosses, music, or modern church aesthetics, we’re still asking the same questions…

• What helps us focus on God?

• What pulls us away from him?

• Where’s the line between honoring and idolizing?

Because at the end of the day, worship isn’t about the method—it’s about the object. If what we do leads us to worship Christ, we’re on the right track. But if it starts replacing him? That’s when we have a problem.

All that to say, according to the Second of Nicaea, just let the little girl pray with her cross-necklace… so long as her eyes stay on Jesus, ya know?

Until next time,

Petey