Byzantine Culture

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Byzantine Iconoclasm

Explore Byzantine Iconoclasm, the great controversy over religious images that divided the Byzantine Empire for more than a century. Learn about the emperors, the monks, and the theology of images.

Between 726 and 843, the Byzantine Empire was convulsed by a religious and political struggle that historians call Iconoclasm, the dispute over the legitimacy of religious images. The emperors of the Isaurian dynasty, beginning with Leo III, banned the production and veneration of icons, claiming that the practice was idolatry. The defenders of icons, led by monks, bishops, and the papacy, argued that the veneration of images was a legitimate extension of the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation. The dispute produced two waves of persecution, the exile of monks, the destruction of images, and the eventual triumph of the iconodule position, celebrated annually in the Orthodox Church as the Triumph of Orthodoxy.

The Iconoclast controversy was one of the defining moments of Byzantine religious and political history. It shaped the relationship between church and state, defined the visual tradition of the Orthodox world, and helped prepare the way for the eventual Great Schism of 1054 between Eastern and Western Christianity.

Origins of the Controversy

Background

The veneration of religious images was a long-established practice in the Christian church by the eighth century. Icons of Christ, the Virgin, and the saints were venerated in private homes and public churches, kissed and burned incense before, and carried in processions. The theological justification for the practice was developed gradually in the early centuries, but by the time of the Iconoclast controversy, the defenders of icons had a sophisticated position: the icon was venerated not as an object in itself but as a window to the prototype it represented.

The practice was not uncontroversial. Critics of icons, both Christian and non-Christian, argued that the veneration of images was a form of idolatry, condemned in the Old Testament and incompatible with the spiritual nature of Christian worship. These criticisms were voiced by occasional church fathers, but they did not become the basis of imperial policy until the eighth century.

Leo III and the First Wave

The Iconoclast controversy broke out under Emperor Leo III, who ruled from 717 to 741. The exact causes of his decision to ban icons are debated. Some historians emphasize the influence of Islamic and Jewish critics of Christian image use. Others stress the desire of the Isaurian emperors to assert imperial control over the church, which was dominated by image-venerating monks and bishops. Still others emphasize practical considerations, such as the desire to redirect the wealth of the monasteries to the imperial treasury or the army.

The traditional account, derived from the iconodule sources, says that Leo III was inspired to ban icons by a volcanic eruption of Thera in 726, which he interpreted as a divine judgment. Whether or not the eruption was decisive, the emperor issued a series of decrees banning the production and veneration of icons. The story of the famous icon of Christ above the Chalke Gate of the imperial palace, which was destroyed by soldiers in 726, became the symbolic beginning of Iconoclasm.

The Theology of the Dispute

The Iconoclast Position

The Iconoclasts argued that the Christian God, being invisible and infinite, could not be represented in human form. To depict Christ in an icon was either to confine him to a created form, a kind of Nestorianism, or to confuse his divine and human natures, a kind of Monophysitism. The Old Testament prohibition of images was absolute, and the Christian tradition had condemned images in the early centuries. The Iconoclasts also appealed to the military weakness of the empire, arguing that divine displeasure at the veneration of idols had led to the Arab conquests.

The Iconoclast position was articulated in the rulings of the Iconoclast council of Hieria in 754, convoked by Emperor Constantine V. The council, attended by some 338 bishops, declared all icons to be idols and demanded their removal from churches. The council’s rulings were later repudiated by the iconodule Second Council of Nicaea, but they represent the most sophisticated articulation of the Iconoclast position.

The Iconodule Position

The defenders of icons, the iconodules, argued that the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation made image-veneration legitimate. If God had truly become man in Christ, then Christ could legitimately be depicted in an icon, and to venerate the icon was to venerate the prototype it represented. The defenders of icons also pointed to the long history of Christian image use and to the examples of the early church fathers, who had approved of images.

The defense of images was articulated in a series of brilliant theological treatises, most famously by John of Damascus, a monk of the Mar Saba monastery in Palestine who wrote three Apologetic Treatises against those who attack the divine images. Although John was living under Muslim rule and could not be touched by the Byzantine emperor, his writings were enormously influential in the Byzantine world. Theodore the Studite, abbot of the Studios monastery in Constantinople, also defended images vigorously and was a leader of the iconodule resistance to imperial authority.

The Persecution of the Iconodules

The Iconoclast emperors used the full power of the state to enforce their policy. Monasteries were dissolved, monks were forced to marry or to flee, icons and mosaics were destroyed, and libraries were burned. The most famous victim was Saint Stephen the Younger, a monk of the Auxentios monastery on Mount Auxentios near Constantinople, who was arrested, tortured, and executed in 764 for refusing to accept Iconoclast doctrines. The cult of Stephen the Younger, established soon after his death, became a focus of iconodule devotion.

The persecution of monks was especially severe, since the monks were the most vocal defenders of images. Iconoclast emperors confiscated monastic property, forced monks to leave their monasteries, and at times attempted to draft them into the army. The monasteries that survived the persecution often did so in remote locations or under the protection of the papacy in Italy.

The End of the First Wave

The first wave of Iconoclasm ended in 787, with the Second Council of Nicaea, convoked by Empress Irene, the regent for her son Constantine VI. The council, attended by some 350 bishops, restored the veneration of icons and condemned the Iconoclast position. The decisions of the council were accepted by the papacy and by the entire Christian church at the time, although they were to be overturned briefly under a second wave of Iconoclasm.

The Second Wave of Iconoclasm

The second wave of Iconoclasm began in 814, when Emperor Leo V the Armenian, suspecting the iconodule party of disloyalty, banned the veneration of icons and reasserted the Iconoclast position. The second wave was less violent than the first but lasted nearly thirty years. The iconodule resistance was led by Theodore the Studite and the monasteries of Constantinople, who opposed imperial authority with remarkable courage. The end of the second wave came in 842, when Empress Theodora, ruling as regent for her son Michael III, restored the veneration of icons and convened a council that condemned Iconoclasm.

The restoration of icons in 843 is celebrated in the Orthodox Church as the Triumph of Orthodoxy, the first of the great feast days of the liturgical year. The feast, which falls on the first Sunday of Lent, is a celebration not only of icons but of orthodoxy in general, and the service includes the chanting of the Synodikon of Orthodoxy, which condemns all heresies and blesses the defenders of the true faith.

The Consequences of Iconoclasm

Religious Consequences

The Iconoclast controversy had profound religious consequences. It established definitively that the veneration of icons was a legitimate and necessary part of Christian practice. It shaped the theology of the Eastern church, especially the distinction between veneration (proskynesis), which was appropriate for icons, and worship (latreia), which was reserved for God alone. It also shaped the visual tradition of the Orthodox world, since the icons produced after 843 had a clear theological and aesthetic program.

The controversy also strengthened the position of the monastic party in the Byzantine church. The monks had been the most vocal defenders of icons, and their victory in 843 gave them a moral authority that lasted for centuries. The great monastic houses of Constantinople, including the Studios, the Chora, and the Holy Mountain, became major political and cultural forces in the empire.

Artistic Consequences

The Iconoclast controversy had a profound effect on Byzantine art. The destruction of icons and mosaics during the two waves of Iconoclasm meant that most of the surviving Byzantine art dates from after 843, the so-called Macedonian and post-Macedonian periods. The art that survived from the iconoclastic period was almost exclusively secular, including imperial portraits, hunting scenes, and architectural ornament, since religious images were not produced.

The revival of icon painting after 843 produced a new aesthetic, combining the surviving classical tradition with a more abstract and spiritual style. The Macedonian period icons are technically refined and spiritually intense, and they form the foundation of the Byzantine icon tradition that would be transmitted to Russia and the Slavic world.

Political Consequences

The Iconoclast controversy had important political consequences. The resistance of the papacy to the Iconoclast emperors led to a realignment of papal allegiance. The papacy had previously been closely tied to the Byzantine emperor, but the iconoclast policy of the Isaurian dynasty alienated the popes, who turned to the Frankish kings of the West for protection. The coronation of Charlemagne as Roman emperor in 800 was, in part, a response to the iconoclast policies of the Byzantine emperors, and it marked the beginning of the political separation of East and West that would eventually lead to the Great Schism of 1054.

Conclusion

The Iconoclast controversy was one of the most consequential religious disputes in Christian history. It produced a clear theological articulation of the Christian attitude to images, established the practice of icon veneration as a defining element of Orthodox Christianity, and shaped the visual and political culture of the Byzantine world and its successors. To understand the Iconoclast controversy is to understand why Orthodox churches today are filled with icons, why the icon is venerated rather than worshipped, and why the relationship between church and state in the Orthodox world has been shaped by the resistance of monks to imperial policy.

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