Why Did Iconoclasm Happen in the Byzantine Empire?

Iconoclasm — the imperial policy banning the production and veneration of religious images — was one of the most significant and divisive religious controversies of the early Middle Ages. It began under the emperor Leo III in 726 and lasted, with a brief restoration between 787 and 815, until 843, when the empress Theodora restored the icons in an event still celebrated in the Orthodox Church as the Triumph of Orthodoxy. The causes of iconoclasm were many: theological (was the veneration of icons idolatry, as the Old Testament seemed to forbid?), political (the monastic establishment was closely associated with the cult of icons), military (the iconoclasts argued that the empire’s defeats in the seventh and eighth centuries were God’s punishment for idolatry), and cultural (the destruction of icons represented a major break with the religious art of late antiquity). The controversy shaped the visual, theological, and political culture of Byzantium for more than a century.

The argument below links to the broader treatment of the iconoclasm controversy and to the related treatment of what an icon is.

What Was Iconoclasm?

Iconoclasm was the imperial prohibition of religious images, especially icons depicting Christ, the Virgin Mary, the saints, and the angels. The policy included the destruction of icons, the defacement of mosaics and frescoes, the whitewashing of figural representations, the persecution of iconodule (pro-icon) monks and clergy, and the replacement of figural art with abstract, vegetal, or cross-only decoration. The policies were enforced by the imperial government, often with violence, and they touched virtually every aspect of Byzantine religious and cultural life.

The iconoclasts argued that the veneration of icons was idolatry forbidden by the Old Testament. The Second Commandment, “You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth” (Exodus 20:4), was the principal text cited by the iconoclasts. The iconodules replied that the veneration of icons was not absolute worship (latreia) but a relative veneration (proskynesis) that passed through the image to the prototype it represented. They also pointed to the doctrine of the Incarnation: because God had taken on human form in the person of Jesus Christ, the depiction of Christ’s human form was not merely permissible but theologically correct.

The Causes of Iconoclasm

The causes of iconoclasm were multiple and complex, and modern historians have given different weights to each. The principal causes include:

Military crisis. The seventh and eighth centuries were, for the Byzantine Empire, a period of military catastrophe. The Arab conquests of the 630s and 640s stripped the empire of Egypt, Syria, North Africa, and parts of Anatolia. The Persian wars of Heraclius had already devastated the eastern provinces. The iconoclasts argued that the empire’s military defeats were God’s punishment for the sin of idolatry, and they pointed to the Old Testament examples of the Israelites’ defeats when they worshipped false gods. The iconodules, by contrast, argued that the iconoclasts themselves were the cause of the empire’s troubles, and that the destruction of icons was itself a sin.

Religious reform. The iconoclasts were reformers who wished to purify the Christian religion of what they considered to be pagan or superstitious practices. The cult of icons had grown enormously in the fifth and sixth centuries, with saints’ relics, miracle-working icons, and elaborate liturgical uses of images. The iconoclasts viewed these developments as a corruption of the original Christian faith, and they wished to return to a more austere, more spiritual form of Christianity. The iconodules, by contrast, regarded the cult of icons as an essential part of the Christian tradition, with deep roots in the New Testament, the Church Fathers, and the practice of the early church.

Political struggle. Iconoclasm was closely linked to the political struggles of the seventh and eighth centuries. The iconoclast emperors, especially Leo III and Constantine V, were from the eastern Anatolian frontier regions, the so-called Isaurian territories, where the cult of icons was less developed than in the capital. The iconodules, by contrast, were closely associated with the monastic establishment, the civil aristocracy, and especially the iconodule monasteries of Constantinople. The political struggle between the iconoclasts and the iconodules was, in part, a struggle for power between the provincial military establishment and the urban monastic and aristocratic establishment.

Cultural transformation. The destruction of icons represented a major cultural break with the religious art of late antiquity. The great age of Byzantine art, exemplified by the surviving mosaics of the Hagia Sophia and the surviving churches of Ravenna, had been an iconodule age, and the iconoclast policies of the eighth and ninth centuries put a temporary end to the figural art of the empire. The iconoclast period produced a distinctive style of religious art, with abstract, vegetal, and cross-only decoration, and the great figural art of the Macedonian period (the so-called “Macedonian Renaissance”) was a deliberate revival of pre-iconoclast styles.

Religious controversy with Islam and Judaism. The iconoclasts were aware that the Muslim prohibition on images, and the Jewish prohibition of graven images, were both consistent with the iconoclast position. The iconodules argued that the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation distinguished Christianity from Islam and Judaism, and that the depiction of Christ as a human being was theologically correct. The polemic with Islam and Judaism, treated in more detail in rise of Islam, was a significant element in the iconoclast controversy.

The Course of the Controversy

The iconoclast period can be divided into two phases. The first phase, from 726 to 787, began with the publication of the iconoclast decrees under Leo III and ended with the Second Council of Nicaea, convened by the empress Irene in 787. The council, presided over by the papal legates, condemned iconoclasm and defined the orthodox doctrine of icons: the veneration of icons was not absolute worship but a relative veneration passing through the image to the prototype.

The second phase, from 815 to 843, began with the accession of the iconoclast emperor Leo V and ended with the death of the iconoclast emperor Theophilus and the restoration of the icons by the regent Theodora in 843. The second iconoclast period was, if anything, more thorough than the first, and many more icons, mosaics, and frescoes were destroyed. The restoration of 843, known as the Triumph of Orthodoxy, is still celebrated by the Orthodox Church on the first Sunday of Lent.

The end of iconoclasm in 843 did not immediately restore the figural art of the pre-iconoclast period. The Macedonian Renaissance of the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries, examined in the broader article on the Byzantine Empire, was a deliberate revival of the pre-iconoclast artistic tradition, and it produced the great figural mosaics of Hagia Sophia, the apse mosaics of the church of Hagia Sophia in Thessalonica, the great ivory triptychs of the so-called Romanos group, and the magnificent manuscripts of the imperial scriptorium. The iconoclast period, although it produced no surviving major figural art, had lasting effects on the religious, theological, and political culture of Byzantium.

The Significance

The iconoclast controversy was one of the most significant religious disputes of the early Middle Ages. The Orthodox tradition that emerged from it defined itself in opposition to the iconoclast position: the veneration of icons, the use of figural religious art, the close relationship between the monastic establishment and the religious art of the empire, and the theological tradition of the iconodule Fathers all became central features of Orthodox Christianity. The controversy also shaped the relationship between the Byzantine Empire and the Latin west: the papacy was a major supporter of the iconodule position, while the Carolingian court was suspicious of the council’s decrees, contributing to the long-standing division between east and west. The destruction of religious art is treated in more detail in why Byzantine icons were destroyed.