May Christians Venerate Statues?
Do statues resemble pagan idols? The Seventh Ecumenical Council approved various art forms based on principle, not dimension: Honor shown to sacred images passes to the thing they resemble.
While both Orthodox and Catholics venerate religious images, Orthodox Christians criticize Catholic use of three-dimensional statues as opposed to two-dimensional icons. They argue that statues too closely resemble pagan idols and cite the decisions of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, which approved icons but did not explicitly mention statues. Orthodox tradition holds that icons, with their distinctive style that emphasizes the transfigured spiritual reality rather than naturalistic representation, provide a proper „window to heaven‟.
Refutation
In „Contra Errores Graecorum,‟ St. Thomas Aquinas addresses questions about sacred art by examining how both traditions understand religious images as aids to devotion rather than objects of worship in themselves.
The august Ecumenical Councils, those seven pillars of the house of Wisdom, were organized in it and among us. This, our Church, holds the originals of their sacred definitions.
Aquinas acknowledges the importance of the Seventh Ecumenical Council (Nicaea II, 787), which defined the proper veneration of sacred images against the iconoclasts. He points out that this Council approved various forms of religious art:
The definition given by the Seventh Ecumenical Council was that images be produced with paints (or colors), with mosaic, or tesselated, and with any other suitable material, such as gold and silver and other metals… The images may be inscribed upon sacred utensils, divine Gospels, precious Crosses, robes, sheets, cloths, walls, boards and houses.
Thomas notes that the Council’s primary concern was not the artistic medium or dimensionality of images but rather the theological principle that honor shown to sacred images passes to their prototypes. The distinction between veneration (proskynesis) and worship (latreia) is what separates Christian practice from idolatry.
Aquinas would point out that the development of different artistic styles in East and West reflects cultural adaptations rather than theological differences. The Byzantine iconographic style developed in particular historical circumstances, just as Western religious art evolved in dialogue with changing artistic movements.
The essential principle maintained by both traditions is that sacred images serve to raise the mind and heart to God and the saints they represent. As the Seventh Council declared, „The honor paid to the image passes to its prototype, and whoever venerates an image venerates the person depicted in it.‟
Conclusion
While acknowledging the distinctive artistic traditions that developed in East and West, Aquinas would emphasize that both Catholic and Orthodox understandings of sacred images rest on the same theological foundation established by the Seventh Ecumenical Council. The difference in artistic expression between icons and statues does not constitute a theological error but rather represents cultural and aesthetic diversity within the universal Church. What matters most is not the artistic medium but the theological understanding that sacred images facilitate, rather than obstruct, our worship of God and communion with the saints.