THE ECUMENICAL SYNODS IN THE EASTERN BYZANTINE AND POST BYZANTINE ICONOGRAPHIC TRADITION

The Ecumenical Councils are part of the historical events that the byzantine and the post byzantine painting have presented. Relevant works are found in wall paintings (in the narthex but they have been found in the nave as well), in portable icons and in miniatures of manuscripts. In considering the surviving material, there are two visual currents: the non-figural - symbolic and the figural. The general arrangement of the compositions is the same and it is obviously connected with the unchangeable through the centuries of the institution of the ecumenical council. Most of the scenes mainly follow the established conventional formula: The bishops, in semicircle, are sitting on either side of the emperor. In the earlier representations, the cross or the open gospel dominate the centre of the scene, while at the depictions of the post-byzantine period and onwards, it is the emperor that usually dominates the centre of the representation. The heretics are easily discerned because they are depicted in rather dark color tones and distorted shapes, usually in a humble posture or frontal confrontation. In a lot of depictions, the bishop of Rome is also depicted among the bishops, despite the fact, that he was never present in any ecumenical council. The frequency of the depicting ecumenical councils increases after the 13th century and particularly in the 16th-18th centuries. The projection of the Ecumenical Councils through their depiction in byzantine and post-byzantine iconography includes an ecclesiological manifestation of the one, holy and catholic ecclesia and of the synodical organization of the church. This is an evidence that the (byzantine) Church remains Church of the Ecumenical Councils and their teaching, and so, the depiction of the ecumenical councils by the presence of the pope of Rome as well in plenty of them, is a symbol of the undivided Church.