The Iconoclasm Controversy: Empire, Faith, and the Fate of Byzantine Images
The Byzantine iconoclasm controversy of the eighth and ninth centuries, the destruction and defense of holy images, and the lasting impact on East-West relations.
Between 726 and 843, the Byzantine Empire was convulsed by a profound and lasting religious controversy. The dispute concerned the use of religious images - the icons of Christ, the Virgin, and the saints - and it produced some of the most violent persecutions in the history of the Eastern Church. The iconoclasts, who held power in the Empire for about a century, argued that the veneration of images was a form of idolatry forbidden by the Old Testament. The iconodules, who eventually prevailed, argued that the honor paid to images passed through them to their prototype, and that the denial of the legitimacy of images was itself a heresy, since it denied thereality of the Incarnation.
The iconoclasm controversy was not simply a theological dispute. It was also a political struggle between the emperors and the monasteries, a cultural conflict between the court and the church, and a turning point in the long estrangement between Eastern and Western Christianity. Its consequences shaped the visual culture of Eastern Christianity, defined the role of images in worship, and contributed to the development of the medieval papacy as an independent center of religious authority.
The religious background
The use of images in Christian worship had developed gradually during the first centuries of the Church. The earliest Christian art, in the catacombs of Rome and elsewhere, had been largely symbolic: fish, anchors, doves, and the chi-rho monogram. Figural images - paintings and mosaics of Christ, the Virgin, and the saints - became common in churches from the fourth century onward, especially after the conversion of Constantine. By the sixth century, icons - portable images painted on wooden panels - had become a major feature of Byzantine religious life, and their veneration was supported by a sophisticated theological tradition.
The theological defense of icons was developed by writers such as John of Damascus, a monk of the eighth century who worked in the Umayyad Caliphate. In his three apologies against the iconoclasts, John argued that the honor paid to an image passes through it to its prototype, just as the honor paid to the imperial image passes through it to the emperor. To reject icons, he argued, was to reject thereality of the Incarnation, since the Christian claim that God had become visible in Christ implied that matter could be a vehicle of divine grace. John also argued that the Old Testament prohibition of images was a specific command to the Israelites, who were prone to idolatry, and that it did not apply to Christians, who worshiped the invisible God through visible things.
The iconoclast position was developed by a different set of theologians, often working in the imperial court. The iconoclasts argued that the veneration of images was a form of idolatry, that the Old Testament prohibition of images was universal, and that the use of images was a pagan practice that had corrupted the Christian church. The most influential of the iconoclast theologians was Constantine V, who convened a council at Hieria in 754 that condemned the veneration of images. The council was attended only by bishops favorable to the emperor, and its decisions were later repudiated by the iconodules.
The first phase of iconoclasm
The first phase of iconoclasm began in 726, when Emperor Leo III issued an edict against the veneration of images. The edict was not the result of a sudden decision, but of a long process of imperial and ecclesiastical concern. Leo III had come to power in 717, having rescued Constantinople from an Arab siege, and he was determined to strengthen the Empire against its external enemies. He may have believed that the veneration of images was a form of superstition that weakened the Empire’s resolve, and he may also have been influenced by the strict monotheism of Islam and Judaism, both of which were critical of Christian image use.
The edict of 726 was followed by a campaign of icon destruction, especially in the public spaces of Constantinople. Soldiers were sent to remove icons from churches and public buildings, and they were met with fierce resistance from monks and nuns. The most famous incident of resistance occurred in 730, when a group of iconodule women, led by the empress Irene, attacked the imperial troops and killed a number of soldiers. The empress was eventually deposed and exiled, and the iconoclast policy continued.
The most important opponent of iconoclasm in the early phase was John of Damascus, who wrote his three apologies from the safety of the Umayyad Caliphate. John argued that the iconoclasts were Manicheans - dualists who rejected the goodness of the material world - and that they were guilty of a heresy against the Incarnation. His writings were widely circulated in the Byzantine Empire, and they provided the theological foundation for the iconodule resistance. The papacy in Rome also firmly opposed the iconoclast policy, and the conflict between Rome and Constantinople over images was one of the factors in the growing estrangement between the two sees.
It should be noted that the older reading of iconoclasm as principally a politically driven campaign to confiscate monastic wealth has been seriously challenged by Leslie Brubaker and John Haldon in Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era (2011). On their account, the iconoclast position was a coherent theological and pastoral programme that engaged seriously with the inherited iconophile tradition, and the conflict cannot be reduced to a struggle for monastic property. The “political” reading remains influential in older literature, and a senior reader will want to weigh the two interpretations against one another.
The Council of Nicaea and the second phase
The first phase of iconoclasm ended with the death of Leo IV in 780, and the accession of his son Constantine VI under the regency of the empress Irene. Irene was a fervent iconodule, and she worked to reverse the iconoclast policy. In 787, she convened the Second Council of Nicaea, which was attended by 350 bishops and which restored the veneration of images. The council was an ecumenical council - the seventh recognized by both the Eastern and Western churches - and it was one of the most important events in the history of Christian theology.
The council’s definition of icons was both simple and profound. It declared that the honor paid to an icon passes through it to its prototype, and that the veneration of icons is a legitimate form of Christian worship. The council distinguished between latreia, the worship due to God alone, and proskynesis, the veneration paid to images, and it argued that the latter is a legitimate form of honoring the persons represented. The council also condemned the iconoclast position as a heresy, and it anathematized the iconoclast bishops who had supported the policy of the iconoclast emperors.
The Second Council of Nicaea was accepted by the papacy, and it was regarded as the definitive statement of the Christian position on images. Yet it was deeply unpopular with the iconoclast faction in the Byzantine Empire, and the council’s decisions were not enforced throughout the Empire. In 813, a new iconoclast emperor, Leo V, came to power, and he initiated the second phase of iconoclasm. The second phase was even more severe than the first, and it lasted until 843, when the iconodule empress Theodora finally restored the veneration of images.
The Triumph of Orthodoxy
The restoration of icon veneration in 843, known as the “Triumph of Orthodoxy,” was a major event in the history of the Eastern Church. The iconodule bishops returned from exile, the iconoclast bishops were deposed, and the veneration of images was once again made the official policy of the Empire. The first Sunday of Lent, which became known as the “Sunday of Orthodoxy,” was set aside to commemorate the event, and it remains an important feast in the Eastern Christian calendar to this day.
The Triumph of Orthodoxy was a major victory for the monasteries, which had been the chief defenders of icon veneration. The iconoclast emperors had persecuted the monks, confiscated their property, and in some cases forcibly married them or integrated them into the secular clergy. The restoration of icon veneration was therefore also a restoration of the monastic order, and it marked the beginning of a new era in Byzantine religious life. The great monasteries of Constantinople - Studios, Chora, and others - became the chief centers of Byzantine intellectual and cultural life, and they produced the theologians, historians, and artists who would define the Byzantine tradition for centuries.
The iconoclasm controversy also had important consequences for Byzantine art. The destruction of icons during the two phases of iconoclasm was enormous, and many of the greatest works of early Byzantine art were lost. The surviving works of the early Byzantine period are those that were either hidden, exported, or made in regions beyond imperial control. The icons that survive from this period, especially those in the monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai, give a glimpse of the richness of the tradition that was destroyed. The art of the post-iconoclastic period, exemplified by the mosaics of Hagia Sophia, the churches of Hosios David, and the illuminated manuscripts of the Macedonian Renaissance, was shaped by the need to create new images that would not be subject to the iconoclast critique.
The impact on East-West relations
The iconoclasm controversy was one of the most important factors in the growing estrangement between Eastern and Western Christianity. The popes of the eighth century had firmly supported the iconodules, and they had been horrified by the iconoclast policy. The papacy had also been politically threatened by the iconoclast emperors, who had attempted to assert imperial control over the Roman church. The most famous episode was the iconoclast council of 754, which had declared the pope to be a heretic and had attempted to depose him. The Roman church responded by developing an increasingly independent theology and by seeking the support of the Carolingian rulers in the West.
The alliance between the papacy and the Carolingians, which culminated in the coronation of Charlemagne in 800, was in part a response to the iconoclast controversy. The popes needed a powerful protector against the iconoclast emperors, and the Carolingians needed the spiritual legitimacy that the pope could provide. The result was the creation of a Western empire to rival the Byzantine, and the gradual development of two distinct Christian civilizations. The iconoclasm controversy did not directly cause the great schism of 1054, but it was one of the factors that made the schism possible.
For a fuller account of the Byzantine side of the controversy, see the Byzantine religion and the Orthodox Church and the survival of the Eastern Roman Empire. The destruction of icons had profound consequences for the visual arts: the surviving works of the early Byzantine period are the chief witnesses to the early Christian and Byzantine art of the era, and the post-iconoclastic art of the Macedonian Renaissance set the standard for Eastern Christian iconography for centuries to come.
Further reading
- Leslie Brubaker and John Haldon, Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era, c. 680–850 (Cambridge University Press, 2011).
- Charles Barber, Figure and Likeness: On the Limits of Representation in Byzantine Iconoclasm (Princeton University Press, 2002).
- Marie-France Auzépy, La vie d’Étienne le Jeune par Étienne le Diacre (Ashgate, 1997) for the contemporary sources.