While Catholics are sometimes accused of worshiping images, in violation of the first commandment, the Church says this is a misunderstanding. In the Church's opinion, "the honor paid to sacred images is a 'respectful veneration', not the adoration due to God alone". In the 8th century, heated arguments arose over whether religious icons (in this context paintings) were prohibited by the first commandment. The dispute was almost entirely restricted to the Eastern church; the iconoclasts wished to prohibit icons, while the iconodules supported their veneration, a position consistently backed by the Western Church. At the Second Council of Nicaea in 787, the ecumenical council determined that the veneration of icons and statues was not in violation of the commandment and stated "whoever venerates an image venerates the person portrayed in it." At around the time of the controversy over Iconoclasm, the Western church began to use monumental sculpture, which by the Romanesque period became a major feature of Western Christian art, that has remained part of the Catholic tradition, in contrast to Eastern Christianity, which avoids large religious sculpture. The "Catechism", using very traditional arguments, posits that God gave permission for images that symbolize Christian salvation by leaving symbols such as the bronze serpent, and the cherubim on the Ark of the Covenant. It states that "by becoming incarnate, the Son of God introduced a new economy of images".