The Holy Fathers of the 7th Ecumenical Council are commemorated on October 9. Today the Church remembers the 350 holy Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council under the holy Patriarch Tarasius (February 25). The Synod of 787 (the second to meet in Nicea) refuted the Iconoclast heresy during the reign of Empress Irene and her son Constantine VI. The Council decreed that the veneration of icons was not idolatry, because the honor shown to them is not directed to the wood or paint, but passes to the prototype (the person depicted). It also upheld the possibility of depicting Christ, Who became man and took flesh at His Incarnation. God the Father, on the other hand, cannot be represented in His eternal nature, because “no man has seen God at any time” (John 1:18).