Council of Frankfurt
council · 794 · Frankfurt
The Frankish council at Frankfurt, working from a Latin text that made Nicaea II say 'adoration' where it said 'veneration', rejected the icon council and condemned Spanish adoptionism besides. The Carolingian church staked out a middle way on images the West half-kept for centuries.
The Council of Frankfurt, traditionally also the Council of Frankfort, in 794 was called by Charlemagne, as a meeting of the important churchmen of the Frankish realm. Bishops and priests from Francia, Aquitaine, Italy, and Provence gathered in Franconofurd. The synod, held in June 794, allowed the discussion and resolution of many central religious and political questions.
Had Nicaea II commanded the worship of images? The Frankish bishops answered from a Latin text which said that it had.
Charlemagne's answer to Nicaea II — worship God alone, but the argument ran on a bad translation.
People
- Charlemagne convened
- Alcuin participant
Documents
In the disputes
- Iconoclasm Whether Christ may be depicted, argued from Chalcedon by both sides: Hieria held that the two natures cannot be painted, since one cannot be circumscribed and the other cannot be shown alone; Nicaea II answered on the same ground and reached the opposite conclusion.