<P> Unlike the iconoclast council, the iconophile council included papal representatives, and its decrees were approved by the papacy . The Eastern Orthodox Church considers it to be the last genuine ecumenical council . Icon veneration lasted through the reign of Empress Irene's successor, Nikephoros I (reigned 802--811), and the two brief reigns after his . </P> <P> Emperor Leo V the Armenian instituted a second period of Iconoclasm in 815, again possibly motivated by military failures seen as indicators of divine displeasure, and a desire to replicate the military success of Constantine V . The Byzantines had suffered a series of humiliating defeats at the hands of the Bulgarian Khan Krum, in the course of which emperor Nikephoros I had been killed in battle and emperor Michael I Rangabe had been forced to abdicate . In June 813, a month before the coronation of Leo V, a group of soldiers broke into the imperial mausoleum in the Church of the Holy Apostles, opened the sarcophagus of Constantine V, and implored him to return and save the empire . </P> <P> Soon after his accession, Leo V began to discuss the possibility of reviving iconoclasm with a variety of people, including priests, monks, and members of the senate . He is reported to have remarked to a group of advisors that: </P> <P> all the emperors, who took up images and venerated them, met their death either in revolt or in war; but those who did not venerate images all died a natural death, remained in power until they died, and were then laid to rest with all honors in the imperial mausoleum in the Church of the Holy Apostles . </P>

Which of the following may be a reason behind the banning of icons and veneration of images