In the eighth and ninth centuries, the Byzantine Empire was torn by a bitter conflict over religious images. The struggle over icons shaped Orthodox Christianity, Byzantine art and the empire's relations with the West.
What icons are
An icon, from the Greek eikon, “image,” is a sacred image of Christ, the Virgin Mary, the saints or biblical scenes, usually painted on wood. In Byzantine Christianity, icons were not merely decorations. Believers kissed them, lit candles before them and prayed to the holy person depicted. Some icons were believed to work miracles, and certain famous icons were carried around the walls of Constantinople during sieges for protection.
Iconoclasm
In the early eighth century, some church leaders and emperors came to believe that venerating images was idolatry, forbidden by the commandment against making graven images. The movement to remove or destroy icons is called iconoclasm, from Greek words meaning “image breaking.” Its supporters were iconoclasts; their opponents, who defended icons, were iconophiles, “lovers of images.”
Traditional accounts say the emperor Leo III, the defender of Constantinople, began the policy in the 720s, perhaps after a volcanic eruption in the Aegean that he interpreted as a sign of God's anger. His son Constantine V pursued it more vigorously and in 754 held a church council that condemned the veneration of images. Iconophile monks were persecuted, and some were tortured or killed.
Why did it happen?
Historians have suggested several causes, and none is certain.
- Religious conviction. Some sincerely believed image veneration violated scripture.
- Military defeat. After disasters against the Arabs, some may have concluded that God was punishing Christians for idolatry, especially since the Muslim enemies, who forbade religious images, were winning.
- Imperial authority. Emperors may have sought to reduce the influence of monasteries, which controlled many popular icons and attracted wealth and devotion.
The defense of images
The most important theologian defending icons, John of Damascus, lived not in the empire but under Muslim rule in Syria. He argued that since God had become visible in Christ, it was right to depict Christ in images. He distinguished between worship, owed to God alone, and veneration, the honor given to an image, which passes to the person it represents.
Restoration and return
In 787, the empress Irene, ruling for her young son, called the Second Council of Nicaea, which restored the veneration of icons. Irene later ruled alone, from 797 to 802, the first woman to rule the empire in her own name; to gain power she had her own son blinded. Partly because the throne in Constantinople was held by a woman, the pope in Rome crowned the Frankish king Charlemagne as Roman emperor in the West in 800, a challenge to Byzantine claims.
A second period of iconoclasm began in 815. It ended in 843, when another empress, also named Theodora, ruling for her young son, restored icons permanently. The Orthodox Church still celebrates this event each year as the Triumph of Orthodoxy.
How much was destroyed?
Traditional accounts describe massive destruction of icons and fierce persecution. Recent historians, such as Leslie Brubaker and John Haldon, have argued that much of this picture comes from sources written later by the victorious iconophiles, who had reasons to exaggerate. The actual destruction may have been more limited, and the conflict more about church authority than mass smashing of images. Many early icons were lost, but some survived, including several at the Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai, outside the empire's control.
Art without faces
Iconoclasm did not mean the end of religious art. During the iconoclast periods, churches were decorated with the cross, plants, animals and geometric patterns rather than human figures. A rare survival can be seen in the church of Hagia Irene in Istanbul, where a large plain cross, probably from the eighth century, fills the apse where an image of Christ or the Virgin might otherwise have been. When icons returned after 843, artists created the magnificent figures in mosaic that visitors still admire in Hagia Sophia and in churches across the Orthodox world.
Legacy
The victory of the iconophiles gave Orthodox Christianity its distinctive emphasis on icons, which remains central to worship in Greek, Russian, Serbian and other Orthodox churches today. The conflict also deepened differences between the Byzantine church and the church in Rome, which had largely opposed iconoclasm.
Worked example: images and power
Debates about images are not only Byzantine. Compare iconoclasm with later disputes.
- The Protestant Reformation. In the sixteenth century, some Protestant reformers removed or destroyed statues and paintings in churches, for reasons similar to those of the Byzantine iconoclasts.
- Revolutions. Revolutionaries often tear down statues of former rulers, as in France in the 1790s or Eastern Europe after 1989.
- Modern debates. Arguments over removing monuments to controversial historical figures raise similar questions: what does an image honor, and who decides?
In each case, images matter because people believe they carry meaning and power. The Byzantine debate drew a useful distinction, between honoring what an image represents and worshiping the image itself. Arguments about public monuments today often turn on a similar question: whether a statue honors a person's whole legacy, or simply records history. Thinking carefully about that distinction can make such debates less heated and more productive.