What It Means to Be Protestant: The Case for an Always-Reforming Church

by Gavin Ortlund

The reaction among the Carolingian theologians in the West sheds light on Nicaea II. Around 790, Theodulf of Orleans produced his Opus Caroli, hundreds of pages of scathing critique of the practice of venerating icons. In 794, Charlemagne convoked the Council of Frankfurt, which was also strongly critical of Nicaea II and refused to call it an ecumenical council. But the council adopted a more moderate position than Hieria. The essential Western position was that figural art is acceptable for decorative or commemorative purposes, but it should not be worshipped or bowed to; and it ought to be neither destroyed nor mandated.70 This final point, what Thomas Noble calls their “principled indifference,” was a particular point of emphasis in Frankish theology. What was so reprehensible about Nicaea II, to the Western mind, was its insistence on the necessity of venerating icons, at the risk of anathema. As Theodulf put it, “It is one thing to have (images) for fear of oblivion and another to have them for love of ornament; one thing for will, another for need.”71

The Western position seems reasonable.