Feast of Orthodoxy

[2] Despite the teaching about icons defined at the Seventh Ecumenical Council in 787, the iconoclasts began to trouble the Church again.

After the death of the last iconoclast emperor, Theophilos, his young son Michael III, with his mother the regent Theodora, and Patriarch Methodios, summoned the Synod of Constantinople in 843 to bring peace to the Church.

These heretics comprise all the major opponents of the Orthodox Faith, Arians, Nestorians, Monophysites, Monothelites, Iconoclasts, and so on.

proclaimed for each member of the Romanov Dynasty; all who deny the divine right of kings and all who "dare to stir up insurrection and rebellion against it" had been anathematized.

The Liturgy's Prokeimenon and alleluia verses as well as the Epistle and Gospel readings appointed for the day continue to reflect this older usage.

[4] Icons are held by the Orthodox to be a necessary consequence of Christian faith in the Incarnation of the Word (John 1:14), Jesus Christ.

Icons are considered by Orthodox Christians to have a sacramental character, making present to the believer the person or event depicted on them.

However, the Orthodox always make a clear doctrinal distinction between the veneration (proskynesis) paid to icons and the worship (latria) which is due to God alone.

Icon of the Triumph of Orthodoxy illustrating the "Triumph of Orthodoxy" under the Byzantine empress Theodora and her son Michael III over iconoclasm in 843. Late 14th to early 15th century icon (National Icon Collection 18, British Museum ).
Icon of the Virgin and Child with angels and Sts. George and Theodore Stratelates , c. 600, one of a very few icons to survive Iconoclasm ( encaustic on panel. Saint Catherine's Monastery , Mount Sinai ).