Which Byzantine empress convened the Second Council of Nicaea in 787 to restore icons?

The Byzantine empress who convened the Second Council of Nicaea in 787 to restore the veneration of icons was Irene of Athens. She acted as regent for her son, Emperor Constantine VI, and directed a major reversal of imperial iconoclast policy.

The council met at Nicaea, in present-day İznik, after an earlier attempt to assemble in Constantinople was disrupted by soldiers opposed to icons. About 308 bishops or their representatives eventually signed its decisions. The council rejected the iconoclast position and approved the veneration of holy images, while distinguishing veneration from the worship owed to God alone.

Irene’s policy was shaped by both religious conviction and imperial politics. Her husband, Leo IV, had maintained an iconoclast environment, but after his death she worked with Patriarch Tarasios to restore icon veneration. The council’s decision helped reestablish communion with Rome and is recognized by Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches as the seventh ecumenical council.

The restoration was not permanent at first. Iconoclasm returned under later emperors, and the final restoration of icons came in 843, decades after Irene’s council. That later event is commemorated in Eastern Orthodoxy as the Triumph of Orthodoxy.