zeal, showing at large the impiety of
the Iconoclast heresy, insisting that the false council of the
Iconoclasts, held under Copronymus for the establishment of Iconoclasm,
should be first condemned in presence of his legates, and conjuring them
before God to re-establish holy images at Constantinople, and in all
Greece, on the footing they were before. He recommends to the emperor
and empress his two legates to the council, who were Peter, archpriest
of the Roman church, and Peter, priest and abbot of St. Sabas, in Rome.
The eastern patriarchs being under the Saracen yoke, could not come for
fear of giving offence to their jealous masters, who prohibited, under
the strictest penalties, all commerce with the empire. However, with
much difficulty and through many dangers, they sent their deputies.

The legates of the pope and the oriental patriarchs being arrived, as
also the bishops under their jurisdiction, the council was opened on the
1st of August, in the church of the apostles at Constantinople, in 786.
But the assembly being disturbed by the violences of the Iconoclasts,
and desired {465} by the empress to break up and withdraw for the
present, the council met again the year following in the church of St.
Sophia, at Nice. The two legates from the pope are named first in the
Acts, St. Tarasms next, and after him the legates of the Oriental
patriarchs, namely, John, priest and monk, for the patriarchs of Antioch
and Jerusalem; and Thomas, priest and monk, for the patriarch of
Alexandria. The council consisted of three hundred and fifty bishops,
besides many abbots and other holy priests and confessors,[1] who having
declared the sense of the present church, in relation to the matter in
debate, which was found to be the allowing to holy pictures and images a
relative honor, the council was closed with the usual acclamations and
prayers for the prosperity of the emperor and empress. After which,
synodal letters were sent to all the churches, and in particular to the
pope, who approved the council.

The good patriarch, pursuant to the decrees of the synod, restored holy
images throughout the extent of his jurisdiction. He also labored
zealously to abolish simony, and wrote a letter upon that subject to
pope Adrian, to which, by saying it was the glory of the Roman church to
preserve the purity of the priesthood, he intimated that that church was
free from this reproach. The life of this holy patriarch was a model of