Looting of the Churches of Lyon by the Calvinists in 1562 by Antoine Caron.

In reading the Acts of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, the claim is made that the veneration of images protects the doctrine of the incarnation of Christ. The reason is that the person of Christ was both fully God and fully man; that the Christ had both a divine nature and a human nature, a divine will and a human will, that He was consubstantial with the Father according to His divinity, and consubstantial with us according to His humanity. Thus the depiction of Christ according to His humanity is a confession of orthodoxy over and against the heretics.

It is truly startling to read the anathemas of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, and to realize how, for many years, I would have fallen under these anathemas. Lord have mercy.

Seventh Ecumenical Council

Extracts from the Acts.
Session I.

Anathema to the calumniators of the Christians, that is to the image breakers.

Anathema to those who apply the words of Holy Scripture which were spoken against idols, to the venerable images.

Anathema to those who do not salute the holy and venerable images.

Anathema to those who say that Christians have recourse to the images as to gods. Anathema to those who call the sacred images idols.

Anathema to those who knowingly communicate with those who revile and dishonour the venerable images.

Anathema to those who say that another than Christ our Lord hath delivered us from idols.

Anathema to those who spurn the teachings of the holy Fathers and the tradition of the Catholic Church, taking as a pretext and making their own the arguments of Arius, Nestorius, Eutyches, and Dioscorus, that unless we were evidently taught by the Old and New Testaments, we should not follow the teachings of the holy Fathers and of the holy Ecumenical Synods, and the tradition of the Catholic Church.

Anathema to those who dare to say that the Catholic Church hath at any time sanctioned idols.

Anathema to those who say that the making of images is a diabolical invention and not a tradition of our holy Fathers.

Percival, Henry R (2013-06-23). The Seven Ecumenical Councils (pp. 670-671). Veritatis Splendor Publications. Kindle Edition.