ABSTRACT

In terms of art and Orthodoxy, in the beginning there was no word at all: the earliest canonical legislation dealing with images dates to 691–2 and was proposed by the Quinisext Council (Council in Trullo). The Trullan Council did not focus on art, but three canons dealt in one way or another with images. Canons 73 and 82 concern the status of symbolic representations. The relationship between art and Orthodoxy as expressed by the Council of Trullo was, then, two-fold. For the first time, representation was sufficiently important to the church that legislation about it was drafted. The second Council of Nicaea in 787, which temporarily restored the veneration of images after the first phase of what we call Iconoclasm, elaborates at length on the real presence of saints, Christ, and the Virgin Mary in relics and, to a lesser extent, icons.