Christ Pantocrator

400 Words2 Pages
The icon of Christ Pantocrator found in Saint Catherine’s Monastery in Sinai, Egypt is an excellent artistic manifestation of the theological controversy that existed in Byzantine culture over the dual nature of Jesus Christ. Early Christian art frequently used the motif of Christ as the Good Shepherd; a kind, merciful portrayal of a mortal man that draws parallels to ancient Greek and Roman deity in that he was engaged in the mundane, human action of tending sheep. However, in 325 AD the Council of Nicaea was convened by Constantine to unify Christian doctrine, and ruled that Jesus Christ was divine, equal to, and unified with God and the Holy Spirit. According to this council, the accounts that Jesus was a mortal man who once lived on the