Iconoclasm is a major topic in the history of the Byzantine Empire; its imposition was a traumatic event, with results lasting over a hundred years. The documents included in this volume, arising from the controversy surrounding the lifting of the ban on icons (sacred images), are of major significance, but until the publication of this book no English translation of the conciliar texts, in their entirety, had been available to scholars working in a field who do not easily read eighth-century Byzantine Greek.

Along with an introduction to the history of the controversy and the theology of the icons, Daniel J. Sahas presents a translation of conciliar texts on the icon debate: the Sixth Session of the iconophile Council of Nicea (787), in which the Definition of the iconoclastic Council of Constantinople (754) was read and refuted, point by point, and the Definition of the Council of Nicea (which became the Seventh Ecumenical Council of the Christian Church). The translation is carefully annotated to make the texts as useful as possible to their many modern audiences: scholars and students of medieval history, church history, Christian doctrine and thought, Byzantine studies, Eastern Christianity, and the history of art.