And how little accuracy there was in these cards (τπιτακια), is similar to what was done at the council with the epistle of St. Nilus to Olympiodorus, the eparch. He wanted to "place icons and depict various hunting and fishing scenes" in the martyr's church he was creating. But St. Nilus, having condemned this childishness (νηπιωδες αν ειη και βρεφοπρεπες), decreed "to depict in the altar on the east side of the church only one cross, for through one saving cross the human race is saved. And the walls of the church on both sides are to be filled with images of the sacred history of the Old and New Testaments by the hand of a skilful painter.

Former participants in the Council of Copronymos later said at the Seventh Ecumenical Council: "If we had heard my father say, 'Here and there paint pictures of the Old and New Testaments in the church,' we would not have been fooled to such an extent as to believe. For instead of "depict here and there" they substituted "whitewash — λευκανον", which greatly deceived us."

In addition to outright forgeries in general, fragmentary phrases taken out of context were easily perceived in the tendentious interpretation of the iconoclasts. These are passages from the Fathers against pagan idols, passages that require the veneration of saints by active imitation of them, i.e., passages that do not concern icons at all.

But the iconoclastic fathers seek the most decisive proofs in the heights of theology. They also heard from icon-worshippers a very convincing psychological argument that we cannot but revere the portraits of the persons we revere, and why is the icon of Jesus Christ not His portrait? To avoid an affirmative answer, the iconoclasts fell into maximalism. They demanded not only not to depict the invisible (God the Father), but also Jesus Christ Himself, for in Him is the mystery of the indescribable, the Divinity-Logos.

The inner self-undermining of this maximalism lies in the fact that, having rejected the right to a conditional and partial depiction of the incarnate Lord by the technical means of art, the iconoclasts would logically have to reject any other reflection of the mysteries of the knowledge of God. For example, in the human word (thought), for the mystery of the Incarnation of God is both "indescribable" and "ineffable." And it would be necessary to reject every "word" and "theology" and even the "words" of Holy Scripture. And in any case, this rejected any positive religious service of the entire human culture. And this was purely absurd for iconoclasts, as they were supposedly enlighteners and "progressives." In other words, Orthodox theologians should have exposed the absurdity of agnosticism by referring to the primitive anthropomorphic means of the entire biblical revelation about God.

Orthodox polemicists have not been able to epistemologically radically expose the lie of the maximalism of the iconoclasts. But they built their objections in this direction, in the direction of the relativity of the means and instruments given to the earthly Church in its knowledge of God in human forms. However, for all the relativity of these human forms, they nevertheless reveal the mysteries of the divine and in some way participate in the absolute. This image and method of cognition, however, was not then revealed by Orthodox theology with sufficient philosophical persuasiveness.

The Orthodox responded strongly and subtly to the iconoclasts, pointing out the degree of dogmatic adequacy of the icon to its prototype. They pointed out that in the icon they see not only the historical image of Christ according to His human flesh, but partly (to the extent of its capacity) a reflection of the glory of His Divinity. The Orthodox, therefore, did not renounce the ideal of the icon, on which the iconoclasts thought to "cut off" them as absurd. Here are the arguments of the Orthodox, scattered according to the acts of the Seventh Ecumenical Council:

"Christians, knowing the One Immanuel, Christ the Lord, depict Him, for "the Word was made flesh." For just as in depicting a man they do not represent a soulless man, but the depicted (materially) remains spiritualized, and his image is called an icon (εικων) ξt of the word "to be like" (παρα το εοικέναι), so in making an icon of the Lord, we confess the flesh of the Lord to be deified (τεθεωμενην). Yet we recognize the icon as nothing other than an icon, which is only an imitation of the prototype — πρωτοτυπου.

From where the icon acquires His name and through the name it joins Him, and thanks to this it becomes revered and holy (σεπτη και αγια). For the other is the icon, and the other is the prototype. And none of the sensible people seeks in an icon anything else than to commune through the name with the one whose icon it is, but not yet to communicate in essence. Those who worship God in spirit and truth have icons only for interpretation and memory (και τας εικονοκας αναζωγραφήσεις εις εξηησιν και αωαμνησιν μονον εχοντες)."

In the first part of this argument, the Orthodox subtly approach the idea that talk about the depiction of only one flesh (without a soul) even in a human portrait is crude and unwise. And therefore in the icon of Jesus Christ His divinity is partly reflected.

And in the second part, and even more subtly, they approach the revelation of the spirituality and divinity of the icon through the name of Christ, inherent in it. And His name "unites" the one who prays to Him.

These subtle considerations, however, are weakened by the fathers of the Council with their reservations: "and yet," "but not in essence," "only for interpretation and remembrance." All this is already for the purpose of apologetics in the atmosphere of the moment. Meanwhile, in the fourteenth century, in the theology of St. Gregory Palamas, it is precisely this essential communion with the divine energies that is revealed. This destroys all the remnants of iconoclastic rationalism and positivism, which crept into Orthodox theology and pressed on the minds of the defenders of icons.

Constantine's persecution