As the Prophets saw, as the Apostles taught, as the Church has received, as the Teachers express in dogma, as the inhabited world understands together with them, as grace illumines, as the truth makes clear, as error has been banished, as wisdom makes bold to declare, as Christ has assured, so we think, so we speak, so we preach, honouring Christ our true God, and his Saints, in words, in writings, in thoughts, in sacrifices, in churches, in icons, worshipping and revering the One as God and Lord, and honouring them because of their common Lord as those who are close to him and serve him, and making to them relative veneration.
This is the faith of the Apostles; this is the faith of the Fathers; this is the faith of the Orthodox; this faith makes fast the inhabited world.
On everything that has been written or spoken against the holy Patriarchs Germanus, Tarasius, Nicephorus and Methodius, Ignatius, Photius, Nicephorus, Antony and Nicolas:
Anathema!
On every innovation and
action contrary to the tradition of the Church, and the teaching and pattern of
the holy and celebrated Fathers, or anything that shall be done after this:
Anathema! . . .
On those who accept with
their reason the incarnate economy of God the Word, but will not allow that
this can be beheld through images, and therefore affect to receive our
salvation in words, but deny it in reality:
Anathema!
On those who wickedly
make play with the word ‘uncircumscribed’ and therefore refuse to depict in
images Christ, our true God, who likewise shared our flesh and blood,[Cf.
Hebrews 2:14] and therefore show themselves to be fantasiasts:
Anathema!
On those who admit, even
against their will, the prophetic visions, but will not accept the making of
images of what they saw—O wonder!—even before the Incarnation of the Word, but
emptily say that the incomprehensible and unseen essence itself was seen by
those who beheld it, or conclude that these things make manifest images,
figures and forms of the truth to those who see them, but will not accept that
the Word become man, and his sufferings for our sake, may be depicted in icons:
Anathema!
On those who hear and
understand the Lord saying, If you believed Moses, you would have believed
me,[John 5:46] and the rest, and Moses saying, The Lord our God will raise up
for you from your brothers a prophet like me,[Deuteronomy 18:15; cf. Acts 3:22]
and then say that the prophet is received, but that they will not represent the
grace of the prophet and the salvation he brought for the whole world through
images, even though he was seen and lived among men and women, and cured
sufferings and sickness with mighty acts of healing, and was crucified, and
buried, and rose again, and did and suffered all this for our sake; on those
who will not accept that these works of salvation, accomplished for the whole
world, may be seen in icons, nor honoured and venerated in them:
Anathema!
On those who remain in
the icon-fighting heresy, or rather the Christ-fighting apostasy, and neither
wish to be led to their salvation through the Mosaic legislation, nor choose to
live piously in accordance with apostolic teaching, nor are persuaded to turn
from their error by the advice and exhortations of the Fathers, nor are abashed
by the harmony of every part of the ecumenical Church of God, but once and for
all have subjected themselves to the lot of the Jews and the pagans[lit:
Greeks]; for immediately they have uttered blasphemies against the Archetype,
and have not blushed to dare to make the image of the archetype identical with
the archetype himself. On those, therefore, who have heedlessly accepted this
error, and have stuffed their ears against very divine word and spiritual
teaching, as they are already putrefied, and cut themselves off from the common
body of the Church:
Anathema!
Anastasius, Constantine
and Nicetas, those who started off the Isaurian heresies, unholy men and
leaders to ruin:
Anathema!
Theodotus, Antony and
John, procurers one for another of vices, and false successors of impiety:
Anathema!
Paul who turned back to
Saul, and Theodorus called Gastes, and Stephen the Molutes, as well as Theodore
Krithinus, and Louloudios the lion, and anyone who is like them in uttering
impiety, to whatever category of clergy or any other honour or way of life they
belong; on all these who continue in their impiety:
Anathema!
To all the heretics:
Anathema!
Those who apply the
sayings of the divine Scripture that are directed against idols to the august
icons of Christ our God and his saints:
Anathema!
Those who share the
opinion of those who mock and dishonour the august icons:
Anathema!
Those who say that
Christians treat the icons like gods:
Anathema!
Those who say that
another, apart from Christ our God, delivered us from the error of idols
Anathema!
Those who dare to say
that the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church has accepted idols, thus
overthrowing the whole mystery and mocking the faith of Christians
Anathema! . . .
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