The 7th Ecumenical Council DID NOT proclaim that images of The Father could be made!
Here is what the Council Fathers proclaimed:
“We define that the holy icons, whether in color, mosaic, or some other material, should be exhibited in the holy churches of God, on the sacred vessels and liturgical vestments, on the walls, furnishings, and in houses and along the roads, namely the icons of our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ, that of our Lady the Theotokos, those of the venerable angels and those of all saintly people. Whenever these representations are contemplated, they will cause those who look at them to commemorate and love their prototype. We define also that they should be kissed and that they are an object of veneration and honor (timitiki proskynisis), but not of real worship (latreia), which is reserved for Him Who is the subject of our faith and is proper for the divine nature, ... which is in effect transmitted to the prototype; he who venerates the icon, venerated in it the reality for which it stands.”
The Russians are right! Depictions of the Father are heretical and absurd, no matter what my people have, in the past, done!
What “heresy” would that be?
The Russian position (as described in the article) seems to me shot through with problems. First of all, the Rublev ikon *is still a bodily representation of God the Father*. Cloaking it in angelic garb does not change that.
Second of all, though yes, the full bodily representation of the Father is a quite late artistic development, the “Hand of God” motif for the Father is present from earliest Christianity and even Judaism from the Dura-Europos synagogue to today (my Jewish in-laws have it in their house).