The Synodicon that was composed after the great iconoclastic controversy is a wonderful examination of the theology of icons in the Church. The Eastern Church still celebrates this feast every year. The Catholic Encyclopedia online describes it,
"The first Sunday of the Great Forty days (Lent) in the Byzantine Calendar (sixth Sunday before Easter), is still kept in memory of the final defeat of Iconoclasm and the restoration of the holy icons to the churches on 19 February (which was the first Sunday of Lent), 842." The text of the anathemas are still as relevant today as they were in the 9th century, for there are still many who reject Christ and his incarnation. There are also many who profess to be Christian but who reject the use of holy icons, and this puts them at odds with true Christianity whether they realize it or not. The seventh Ecumenical Council affirmed that this practice is indeed a universal Christian teaching. It is also plain to see that when Church teaching is disregarded, Christ becomes a side-note in one's practice of Christianity. Christ is ultimately replaced by the self, and ultimately Christology is lost for a poor substitution. I wanted to post the list of Anathemas imposed by the Church of that age from the Synodicon which is still read on this feast day in the Eastern Church. Notice how the wording and declarations are primarily Christocentric. You can find the
entire text here. In case you were wondering what anathema means, here is the definition.
The
Orthodox information center has a nice article on the term. Here is an excerpt.
In the acts of the Councils and the further course of the New Testament Church of Christ, the word "anathema" came to mean complete separation from the Church. "The Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematizes", "let him be anathema", "let it be anathema", means a complete tearing away from the church. While in cases of "separation from the communion of the Church" and other epitimia or penances laid on a person, the person remained a member of the Church, even though his participation in her grace filled life was limited, those given over to anathema were thus completely torn away from her until their repentance. Realizing that she is unable to do anything for their salvation, in view of their stubbornness and hardness of heart, the earthly church lifts them up to the judgement of God.
That judgment is merciful unto repentant sinners, but fearsome for the stubborn enemies of God. "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God ... for our God is a consuming fire" (Heb 10:31 ; 12:29).
Anathema is not final damnation: until death repentance is possible. "Anathema" is fearsome not because the Church wishes anyone evil or God seeks their damnation. They desire that all be saved. But it is fearsome to stand before the presence of God in the state of hardened evil: nothing is hidden from Him.Below from the SynodiconTo them who in words accept the Oeconomy of the Incarnation of the Word
of God, but will not tolerate its representation by icons, and thus in word
they make a pretense of accepting, but in fact deny our salvation,
Anathema (3)
To them who because of a mistaken adherence to the term uncircumscribed,
wish not to depict in icons Christ, our True God, Who like us partook of
flesh and blood, and thus show themselves to be Docetists,
Anathema (1)
To them who accept the visions of the prophets, albeit unwillingly, but who
do not - O wonder! - accept the images seen by the prophets even before
the Incarnation of the Word, but vainly say that the intangible and unseeable
essence was seen by the prophets, or even concede that these truly were
revealed to the prophets as images and types and forms, but still cannot endure
to depict in icons the Word. become man and His sufferings for our sake,
Anathema (1)
To them who hear the Lord Who said that "If ye believed in Moses, ye would
have believed in me" and who understand the saying of Moses, "The Lord
our God will raise up for you a prophet like unto me, " but who, on the one
hand, say that they accept the Prophet, yet on the other hand, do not permit the
depiction in icons of the grace of the Prophet and our universal salvation such
as, He was seen, as He mingled with mankind, and worked many healings of
passions and diseases, and such as He was crucified, was buried., and arose, in
short, all that He both suffered and wrought for us; to those, therefore, who
cannot endure to gaze upon these universal and saving deeds in icons, neither
honor nor worship them,
Anathema (3)
To them who persist in the heresy of denying icons, or rather the apostasy of
denying Christ, and are not counseled by the Mosaic law to be led to their
salvation, nor are they convinced to return to piety by the apostolic teachings,
nor are they induced by patristic exhortations and explanations to abandon
their deception, nor are they persuaded by the agreement of the Churches of
God throughout the whole world, but once for all have joined. themselves to the
portion of the Jews and Greeks; for those things wherewith the latter directly
blaspheme the prototype, the former likewise have not blushed to insult in His
icon Him that is depicted therein; therefore, to them who are incorrigibly possessed
by this deception, and have their ears covered towards every Divine word
and spiritual teaching, as already being putrified members, and having cut
themselves off from the common body of the Church,
Anathema (3)
To Anastasios, Constantine and Nicetas, who, being unhallowed guides to
perdition, were the originators of heresies during the reign of the Isaurians,
Anathema (3)
To Theodotus, Anthony and John, mutual instigators of evils who succeeded
each other in their impiety,
Anathema (3)
To Paul, who turned back into a Saul, and to Theodore, surnamed Gastes,
and to Stephan Molytes, and furthermore to Theodore Crithinus and Leon
Laloudius, and. to whomever shares the like impiety with the aforementioned,
whatever his rank might be, in the clergy or in some office or in whatever occupation
he pursues; to all such who continue in their impiety,
Anathema (3)
To Gerontios, who, having his origins in Lampe but vomiting forth in Crete
the venom of his loathsome heresy, called himself the anointed one for the
overturning - fie! - of the saving Oeconomy of Christ, and to his perverted doctrines
and writings and to those who agree with him,
Anathema (3)
THE ELEVEN CHAPTERS AGAINST JOHN ITALUS
To them who attempt by whatever means to introduce a new controversy or
teaching into the ineffable Oeconomy of our Incarnate Saviour and God,
and who seek to penetrate the way wherein God the Word was united to the
human substance and for what reason He deified the flesh He assumed, and
who, by using dialectical terminology of nature and adoption, try to dispute
about the transcendent innovation of His divine and human natures,
Anathema (3)
To them who profess piety yet shamelessly, or rather impiously, introduce
into the Orthodox and Catholic Church the ungodly doctrines of the
Greeks concerning the souls of men, heaven and earth, and the rest of creation,
Anathema (3)
To them who prefer the foolish so-called wisdom of the secular philosophers
and follow its proponents, and who accept the metempsychosis of human
souls or that, like the brute animals, the soul is utterly destroyed and departs
into nothingness, and who thus deny the resurrection, judgment, and the final
recompense for the deeds committed during life,
Anathema (3)
To them who dogmatize that matter and the Ideas are without beginning or
are co-eternal with God, the Creator of all, and that heaven and earth and
the other created things are everlasting, unoriginate and immutable, thus legislating
contrary to Him Who said: 'Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my
words will not pass away'; to them who thus speak vain and earthly things drawing
down the Divine curse upon their own heads,
Anathema (3)
To them who maintain that although the wise men of the Greeks and the
foremost of the heresiarchs were put under anathema by the Seven Holy
and Catholic Councils and by all the fathers that shone forth in Orthodoxy as
ones alien to the Catholic Church because of the adulterations and loathsome
superabundance of error in their teachings, yet they are exceedingly more excellent,
both here and in the future judgment, than those pious and orthodox men
who, by human passion or by ignorance, have committed some offense,
Anathema (3)
To them who do not accept with a pure and simple faith and with all their
soul and heart the extraordinary miracles of our Saviour and God and of
the holy Theotokos who without stain gave birth to Him, and of the other saints,
but who attempt by sophistic demonstration and words to traduce them as being
impossible, or to misinterpret. them according to their own way of thinking, and
to present them according to their own opinion,
Anathema (3)
To them who undertake Greek studies not only for purposes of education
but also follow after their vain opinions, and are so thoroughly convinced
of their truth and validity that they shamelessly introduce them and teach them
to others, sometimes secretly and sometimes openly,
Anathema (3)
To them who of themselves refashion creation by means of mythical fabrications
and accept the Platonic ideas as veritable, saying that matter, being
self-subsistent, is given form by these ideas, and who thereby clearly calumniate
the free will of the Creator Who brought all things into being out of non-being
and Who, as Maker, established the beginning and end of all things by His
authority and sovereignty,
Anathema (3)
To them who say that in the last and general resurrection men will be raised
up and judged in other bodies and not in those wherewith they passed this
present life, inasmuch as these were corrupted and destroyed, and who babble
empty and vain things against Christ our God Himself, and His disciples, our
teachers, who taught that in the very same body in which men lived, in the same
shall they also be judged; furthermore the great Apostle Paul in his discourse
concerning the resurrection distinctly and with examples restates the same truth
more extensively and refutes as mindless those who think differently; therefore,
to them who contravene such dogmas and doctrines,
Anathema (3)
To them who accept and transmit the vain Greek teachings that there is a
pre-existence of souls and teach that all things were not produced and did.
not come into existence out of non-being, that there is an end to the torment or
a restoration again of creation and of human affairs, meaning by such teachings
that the Kingdom of the Heavens is entirely perishable and fleeting, whereas
the Kingdom is eternal and indissoluble as Christ our God Himself taught and
delivered to us, and as we have ascertained from the entire Old and New Scripture,
that the torment is unending and the Kingdom everlasting to them who by
such teachings both destroy themselves and. become agents of eternal condemnation
to others,
Anathema (3)
To those pagan and heterodox doctrines and teachings introduced in contempt
of the Christian and Orthodox faith or in opposition to the Catholic
and blameless faith of the Orthodox, by John Italus and by his disciples who
shared in his ruin,
Anathema (1)
AGAINST NILOS
To those doctrines impiously dogmatized by the pseudo-monk Nilos and to
all who share them,
Anathema (3)
AGAINST THE BOGOMILS
To them who do not confess one nature in the holy, coessential, undivided
and coeternal Trinity, of one honor and of one throne, that is, the Father,
and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, but who affirm that the Son is some adventitious
angel called Satanael or Amen; and furthermore, who say that the Holy
Spirit, equal in power with the Father and the Son, is different from or inferior
to Them in nature; to such men, therefore, be
Anathema (1)
To them who do not confess that God is the Creator of heaven and earth and
of all creatures, the Maker of Adam and the Fashioner of Eve, but say that
the Adversary is the ruler and creator of all and the fashioner of human nature;
to such men,
Anathema (1)
To them who do not confess that the Word and Son of God was begotten
from the Father without change before the ages, and that in these latter
times out of His abundant loving kindness, He became incarnate as a man from
the immaculate Theotokos Mary, taking upon Himself for our salvation all that
pertains to us save sin, and to them who consequently do not partake of His
holy and immortal Mysteries with fear, inasmuch as they consider them as mere
bread and common wine rather than the very flesh of the Master and His holy
and precious Blood shed for the life of the world; to such men,
Anathema (1)
To them who do not worship the Cross of our Lord and God and Saviour
Jesus Christ as the salvation and glory of the whole world and as that which
annulled and utterly destroyed the machinations and weapons of the enemy,
and thereby redeemed creation from the idols and manifested victory to the
world, but hold the Cross to be a tyrannical weapon; to such men,
Anathema (1)
AGAINST EUSTRATIOS, AND LEO OF CHALCEDON
To them who introduce a heretical, new understanding concerning the ineffable
Oeconomy of the Incarnation of our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus
Christ, and say or think that Christ's human nature, like a servant, worships the
unapproachable Divinity and everlastingly retains servitude as an essential and
inseparable mark,
Anathema (3)
To them who do not employ with all reverence the division made in pure
thought for the purpose of showing only the difference between the ineffably
conjoined two natures in Christ - which natures are united in Him without
confusion and without division - but employ this distinction improperly, and say
that this human nature which Christ has assumed is different not only in nature
but also in dignity, and that it worships God and offers a servile ministry, and is
obliged to honor God, in the same manner as the ministering spirits which serve
and worship God as servants; and to them who identify the great High Priest
with the assumed human nature itself, rather than with the Word of God Who
became man, and by such means they dare to hypostatically divide the one
Christ, our Lord and God,
Anathema (3)
AGAINST BASILAKI, SOTERICHOS, AND OTHERS
To them who say that the sacrifice of His precious Body and Blood offered
for our salvation by our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ at the time
of His world-saving Passion was offered up by Him to God the Father, and that
He thus fulfilled the ministry of High Priest for us in His humanity (inasmuch
as He is at the same time God and Sacrificer and Victim, according to St. Gregory
the Theologian), but who then say that He, the Only Begotten, along with
the Holy Spirit, did not Himself accept the sacrifice as God together with the
Father; hence by such teachings they estrange from the divine equality of honor
and dignity both God the Word and the Spirit, the Comforter, Who is of one
essence and of one glory with Him,
Anathema (3)
To them who do not accept that the sacrifice which is offered daily by those
who have received from Christ the priestly service of the Divine Mysteries,
is in fact offered to the Holy Trinity, and thereby contradict the sacred and
divine fathers, Basil and Chrysostom, and other Godbearing fathers who all
agree in both their words and writings,
Anathema (3)
To them who hear the Saviour saying concerning the priestly service of the
Divine Mysteries delivered by Him: "Do this in remembrance of Me, " but
they do not understand "remembrance" correctly, but dare to say that the daily
sacrifice offered by those who perform the sacred service of the Divine Mysteries,
just as our Saviour, the Master of all, delivered to us, reenacts only symbolically
and figuratively the Sacrifice of His own Body and Blood which our Saviour
had offered on the Cross as a ransom and redemption of our common
human nature; and for this reason, since they introduce the doctrine that this is
a different sacrifice from the one originally consummated by the Saviour and
refers to it merely symbolically and figuratively, they bring to naught the Mystery
of the awesome and divine priestly service whereby we receive the earnest
of the future life; therefore, to them who deny what is staunchly proclaimed by
our divine Father John Chrysostom who says in many commentaries on the sayings
of the Great Paul that the sacrifice is identical, that both are one and the
same,
Anathema (3)
To them who invent and introduce intervals of time into the reconciliation
of human nature with the Divine and blessed nature of the lifegiving and
wholly inviolate Trinity, and legislate that we were first reconciled to the onlybegotten
Word by His assumption of humanity and then afterwards to God the
Father during the salutary Passion of the Saviour Christ; and thus they divide
what is indivisible according to the divine and blessed fathers who taught that
the Only-begotten reconciled us to Himself through the entire Mystery of the
Oeconomy, of the Incarnation and through Himself and in Himself to God the
Father and, it follows necessarily, to the all-holy and life-creating Spirit; therefore
to them who invent these new and strange doctrines we say,
Anathema (3)
To them who do not correctly understand the divine voices of the holy teachers
of the Church of God and who attempt to misinterpret and pervert
those things clearly and manifestly spoken in them by the grace of the Holy
Spirit,
Anathema (3)
