Second Council of Nicaea

In 787 the empress Irene called the Seventh Ecumenical Council to Nicaea after decades of iconoclasm, when emperors had destroyed icons and persecuted those who honoured them. Drawing on St. John of Damascus, the council taught that because God became man, Christ can be depicted, and that the honour given to an icon passes to the person shown. It met in the church of Hagia Sophia in Nicaea, which still stands in İznik. The final restoration of icons in 843 is celebrated on the first Sunday of Lent, the Sunday of Orthodoxy.

• Date: 787