Did some popes not want church icons... idol worship?

Comments

• mazza

  February 2006

  i recently done an assignemnt for school on the influence of coptic iconograhpy in our church etc
  
  Here is an extract from my essay:
  ' In 307 A.D. the Roman Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity and in his conversion he forbade statues and icons from churches. He saw them as a form of pagan worship, which needed to be abolished. However, in 404 A.D, the Patriarch Cyril I, the 24th Coptic pope, permitted icons to be hung in the patriachate and all the churches in Egypt.
  
  With the spread of iconography, Christians began to use icons in the wrong way, becoming more concerned with the art itself rather than its meaning...In the 8th century, a movement arose which eliminated all icons from churches including the Coptic Orthodox Churches as they were being worshipped as graven images. ‘Lawon el-Esafry and his followers were involved in the destruction of many icons during this period, known as the Iconoclast (icon-destruction) controversy.’
  
  During this conflict, the two most prominent theologians who defended the use of icons in the Coptic Church where St. John Damascus and St. Theodore of Studios at the 7th Ecumenical council of the Eastern Orthodox Church in 787 A.D. The use of icons was reconsidered and brought back as a form of worship in the Eastern Orthodox Churches, including the Coptic Orthodox Church.
  
  hope i helped
• shnoods

  February 2006

  great research mazza...very interesting
  
  Shnooti.