The emperor Justinian II and the prohibition of the iconography of the lamb of God at the council in Trullo (691-692)

The article examines the problem of the prohibition of the iconography of the Lamb of God at the Council in Trullo (691-692), considered in the context of the reign of Emperor Justinian II Rhinotmetos (685-695; 705-711) and the main trends characteristic of the development of Byzantine theology in this era. The authors characterize the canons of the Council in Trullo as a source on the history of the era of Justinian II, which has a synchronous character. Conclusions are drawn: 1) the eighty-second canon of the Council in Trullo (hereinafter Trull. 82) did not prohibit the image of the Lamb of God as such, only abolishing one specific type of images in which the Lamb, pointed by the finger of John the Baptist, was depicted in a medallion; 2) Trull. 82 had a clearly expressed anti- Armenian and, in part, anti-Roman character; 3) most of the bishops present at the Council received the ordination from the Monothelites, later they took part in the condemnation of the Monothelitism, and at the Council in Trullo they acted in the wake of Justinian’s policy; 4) Trull. 82, abolishing a certain type of iconographic images, explained the meaning and purpose of the icon, based on the principles of pedagogy and didactics, which characterizes it as a canonical precedent for the development of Byzantine iconoclasm; 5) Leo the Isaurus was a political opponent of the Emperor, he took part in his overthrow and knew well Trull. 82, which became for him a theoretical basis to begin the iconoclastic reform. The article is written on the basis of a report made on 21.10.2022 at the conference of the Barsov Society “Church Law and Culture: facets of interaction”.