Iconoclastic controversy
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The Iconoclastic Controversy
In either the year 726 or 730, Emperor Leo III banned all images of Christ that showed him in human form. The Iconoclasts argued that any image depicting God in human form either omits His divine nature or confuses it with His human nature.
The Seventh Ecumenical Council (787) defended image veneration believing that to venerate an image is to venerate not its substance but the shared likeness. An icon of Christ affirms the reality of the human and the divine.
In the year 843 icons and their veneration were restored on the first Sunday in Lent. This Sunday is refered to as the "Sunday of Orthodoxy".