The Council determined that the honorary veneration (timētikē proskynēsis) of icons was permitted, and that the true adoration (alēthinē latreia) was reserved for God alone.

There were also political overtones to the persecution—images of emperors were still allowed by Constantine, which some opponents saw as an attempt to give wider authority to imperial power than to the saints and bishops.

After the latter's early death, his widow, Irene of Athens, as regent for her son, began its restoration for personal inclination and political considerations.

On Christmas Day 784, the head of the imperial chancellery, Tarasios was appointed successor to the iconoclast Patriarch of Constantinople, Paul IV by Irene.

Tarasios dealt with the episcopal opposition by allowing notoriously iconoclast bishops to retain their positions so long as they made a public admission of error, and also by disguising two eastern monks as envoys of the patriarchs of Antioch and Jerusalem, to justify the council's claim to ecumenical status.

[8] It was determined that As the sacred and life-giving cross is everywhere set up as a symbol, so also should the images of Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, the holy angels, as well as those of the saints and other pious and holy men be embodied in the manufacture of sacred vessels, tapestries, vestments, etc., and exhibited on the walls of churches, in the homes, and in all conspicuous places, by the roadside and everywhere, to be revered by all who might see them.

While Adrian's legates were returning from Constantinople to Rome with a copy of the Acts of the Council, the deposed Lombard king Adalgis along with a Byzantine expeditionary force were disembarking in Italy to drive out the Franks.

Charlemagne supported the composition of the Libri Carolini, which was most likely composed in summer 793 by the influential Carolingian theologian, Theodulf of Orléans, in Saint Emmeram's Abbey, Regensburg.

Its garbled nature gave rise to outrage among the court theologians"; it is also said to be, "bedeviled by inaccurate and in some cases intentionally incorrect translations".

According to the Libri, the ruling of the council against iconoclasm led to "civil war" within the Empire, and other ninth-century iconodule sources condemn clergymen and laymen who remained iconoclasts.

Many Protestants who follow the French reformer John Calvin generally agree in rejecting the canons of the Council, which they believe promoted idolatry.

He rejected the distinction between veneration (douleia, proskynēsis) and adoration (latreia) as unbiblical "sophistry" and condemned even the decorative use of images.