Mertcan Bulak
@MBulak
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Ağustos 2020 tarihinde katıldı
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After successfully repulsing the Muslim armies in their second major attack on Constantinople (717–18), Leo openly declared his opposition to icons for the first time. An angry mob murdered the official who was sent to replace the icon of Christ with a cross over the Bronze Gate. Whole sections of the empire rebelled vigorously. Mosaics were gouged from the walls; icons were daubed with whitewash. Leo secured the retirement of the patriarch of Constantinople and the consecration of a new one who favored Leo’s views. The iconoclasts (or image breakers) wanted to replace the religious icons with the traditional Christian symbols of the cross, the Book (Bible), and the elements of the Lord’s Supper. These objects alone, they insisted, should be considered holy.
From the first General (or Ecumenical) Council of Nicaea (325) to the seventh, also held at Nicaea in 787, it was the emperor who called the council and presided over it, either personally or by deputy. Eastern Christians today place great emphasis on these seven general councils. They sometimes refer to themselves as the Church of the Seven Councils.
In the Church of the Twelve Apostles, which he had built, Constantine prepared in the midst of the twelve symbolic tombs of the apostles a thirteenth, for himself. Did not the conversion of the empire fulfill the prophecy of the apostles? This thirteenth tomb gave rise to the emperor’s title as “equal to the apostles.”
Orthodox believers call the process theosis or deification. The language of “becoming gods” troubles Western believers. But Orthodox teachers do not claim that believers become Father, Son, or Spirit but use the language to picture the transformation of believers to become fit companions for eternal communion with and in the triune God. A champion Greek theologian, Athanasius, pictured Jesus fully sharing in the corrupted world of humans so that we could fully share in the incorruptible fellowship of God.
Orthodoxy represents an interesting contrast to Roman Catholicism. The great theme of Orthodox theology is not legal standing before God but the incarnation of God and the recreation of human beings to reflect more of God’s image. According to Orthodoxy, when people sin they do not violate the divinely established legal relationship between God and that person (a dominant idea in Catholicism and Protestant teaching); they reduce the divine likeness—they inflict a wound on the image of God.
Salvation, therefore, consists of the restoration or perfection of the full image of God within people. Christ, the incarnate God, came to earth to restore the icon of God in humanity. The major themes of Orthodoxy, then, are rebirth, recreation, and the transfiguration of women and men.