Eastern, Russian & Greek Orthodoxy Consists of Idol Worshipers Venerating Pagan Icons & Images

A free transcript of this video is available at https://media-cloud.sermonaudio.com/text/57192126326699.pdf. Free transcripts of this video are available in 20 languages at https://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?m=t&s=57192126326699. Ezekiel 30:13, "Thus says the Lord GOD, "I will also destroy the idols And make the images cease ...". Larry Wessels, director of Christian Answers (CANSWERSTV at https://www.youtube.com/user/CAnswersTV and Steve Morrison, Ph.D, director of Research (Steve is the creator of all 3 of our websites: http://www.BIBLEQUERY.ORG, http://www.HISTORYCART.COM & http://www.MUSLIMHOPE.COM analyze the Eastern Orthodoxy use of idolatrous icons that are essential to their religious ceremonies & rituals in order to attain their salvation. Icons are not part of the gospel. Early Christian church history repudiates the use of icons such as Eastern Orthodoxy uses & Orthodox apologists have been found to be liars in their use of early Christian church history to defend icons. Christians kept these convictions against the use of images in worship for over the first 300 years. A major council of the church, meeting in Elvira, Spain in the year 305, expressed its shocked disapproval of some churches with just paintings on the walls. Canon 36 of the Council of Elvira states, "Pictures are not to be placed in churches, so that they do not become objects of worship and adoration."Keep in mind that even by this late date they were objecting just to the presence of art in a church; for example, they would object to our stained glass, saying that it had the potential to become idolatrous. There was no hint of actually using images as “aids in worship” or “points of prayer.” About the year 327 the famous early church historian Eusebius, who lived around Jerusalem, received a letter from the emperor’s sister, Constantia, asking him for a picture of Christ. Eusebius wrote her a very stern reply. He knew that such pictures existed in the marketplaces but he didn’t believe that the people who make such things were Christians. He took it for granted that only pagan artists would dream of making such representations. Eusebius. He insisted that even the incarnate Christ cannot appear in an image, for “the flesh which He put on for our sake … was mingled with the glory of His divinity so that the mortal part was swallowed up by Life.” This was the splendour that Christ revealed in the Transfiguration and which cannot be captured in human art. To depict purely the human form of Christ before its transformation, on the other hand, is to break the commandment of God and to fall into pagan error." (David M. Gwynn, From Iconoclasm to Arianism: The Construction of Christian Tradition in the Iconoclast Controversy [Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 47 (2007) 225–251], p. 227.) Many Christians insisted that the use of such images, especially in worship was a blatant violation of the 2nd commandment. So the icons were a source of discontent which emerged in the eighth century (the 700s) as the bitter iconoclastic controversy. This was especially strong in the east, the Greek speaking part of the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire. In 726, the emperor Leo started a campaign to eliminate the icons. The controversy lasted for over a century as Christian emperors in Constantinople sought to wipe out the icons. In 754 the first “Seventh Ecumenical Council” met and condemned the icons. “If anyone ventures to represent in human figures, by means of material colours, by reason of the incarnation, the substance or person (ousia or hypostasis) of the Word, which cannot be depicted, and does not rather confess that even after the Incarnation he [i.e., the Word] cannot be depicted, let him be anathema!” (Ninth Statement.) They believed that the images were idols – which seems to me to be self-evident – and that they were associated with the idolatry Christianity had come to destroy. They believed that the representations of Christ, Mary, and the Apostles, clearly borrowed from pagan idols. And as the well-known church historian Henry Chadwick writes, “In this instinct there was a measure of truth. The representations of Christ as the Almighty Lord on his judgment throne owed something to pictures of Zeus. Portraits of the Mother of God were not wholly independent of a pagan past of venerated mother-goddesses. In the popular mind the saints had come to fill a role that had been played by heroes and deities.” (The Early Church, 283.) So there was a great struggle in the Eastern Church – that church that has evolved into what is the “Eastern Orthodox Church” to this day. For much of a century the icons were prohibited but eventually they were allowed back in, by the Empress Irene. Hence, we see that the claim of Eastern Orthodoxy that their icons and liturgy go back to the “earliest Christians” is a the myth. The assertion that their rituals have been faithfully handed down from the Apostles completely unaltered is utter nonsense.