Debated or uncertain
The date and the meaning of canon 36 on images are contested; scholars disagree whether it forbade images in principle or only wall paintings vulnerable to desecration.
c. AD 300–306
Synod of Elvira
To regulate Christian life in Spain in the years around the last great persecution.
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- Location
- Elvira, near modern Granada, Roman Spain
- Leaders
- Nineteen Spanish bishops, among them Hosius of Córdoba
- Issues discussed
- Clerical continence and marriage discipline
- Relations between Christians, pagans and Jews
- Decisions made
- Eighty-one canons of local discipline, including long penances for apostasy
- Canon 36 restricted pictures in churches — a text still debated
- Historical impact
- The earliest large body of Latin canon law that survives, and a key witness to pre-Constantinian Christian practice.
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Sources and References
- Canons of Elvira (text and commentary)newadvent.org