Iconoclasm is the destruction of religious icons and other symbols or monuments, usually for religious or political motives. In Christian circles, iconoclasm has generally been motivated by a literal interpretation of the second of the ten commandments, which forbids the making and worshipping of "graven images". It has sometimes been motivated by christological or even political concerns as well.

People who engage in such practices are called iconoclasts, a term that has come to be applied to any person who breaks or disdains established dogmas or conventions. Conversely, people who revere or venerate religious images are called iconodules.

Iconoclasm may be carried out by people of a different religion, but is often the result of sectarian disputes between factions of the same religion. It was particularly important in the history of the Eastern Orthodox Church within the Byzantine Empire during the 8th and 9th centuries.

one of the most outstanding characteristics of the Eastern Orthodox temple of worship, that caused the Iconoclastic Crisis, a major controversy of the Eastern Church.

During this crisis, the Church was divided into two groups:

The Iconoclasts were against the use of icons and the Orthodox favored their use. Icons are basically a cultural type of phenomenon that were natural to the Greeks, who always had their idols, and alien to the Syrians, who were not used to idols. As the Church was most influenced by the Emperors, the Iconoclast Emperors

dealt misery to the Orthodox. It was in the year 730 that Leo III issued his doctrine against the use of icons. We can see the controversy take the form of a Christological debate as a result of the 82nd Canon of the Quinisext Council, held in 692. The Canon stated:

"... henceforth Christ our God must be represented in his human form instead of the ancient lamb."

Thus the negative attitude of the Quinisext Council toward symbolism, and its emphasis on the concrete and historical reality of the Incarnation as the authentic foundation of the art of images, made it inevitable that the debate started by the iconoclastic decree of the Emperor Leo III should immediately become a Christological debate for the problem was already posed within the framework of a theology of the Incarnation.

Any accounts of iconoclast arguments that remain are largely found in iconodule writings. To understand iconoclastic arguments, one must note the main points:

We can owe the victory of the icons to the theology of three men,

St. John of Damascus writes: "I represent God, the Invisible One, not as invisible, but insofar as he has become visible for us by participation in flesh and blood. If we made an image of the invisible God, we would certainly be in error, but we do nothing of the sort; for we are not in error if we make the image of the incarnate God, who appeared on earth in the flesh, and who, in His ineffable goodness, lived with human beings and assumed the nature, the thickness, the shape and the color of the flesh." Thus icons of Christ, the Theotokos, and the Saints are permitted by the Church, while icons of God the Father are condemned, since He never took on a visible characteristic or shape. The Iconoclasts reverted to the severe condemnations of idolatry in the Old Testament as the basis for their argument. St. John of Damascus, who was followed by all later Orthodox Fathers, opposes to it the totally new situation of the relationship between Creator and creatures, God and men, Spirit and matter, which follows the reality of the Incarnation. Thus Christ could be represented in a material image because he had become real man. Then the Iconoclasts replied with the following:

". . . if the image represents the humanity of Christ to the exclusion of His divinity, it implies a Nestorian Christology and separates in Christ, God from man; if on the contrary, the iconographer pretends to represent Christ in the individual fullness of his divinity and his humanity, he assumes that the divinity itself can be circumscribed, which is absurd, or else that it lives in a state of confusion with the humanity; in the latter case he falls into the heresy of Dioscorus, Eutyches, and Severus." The Iconoclast Christology rests on Chalcedonian Apophaticism but seems to ignore completely the main assertion that Chalcedon had borrowed from the Tome of Leo: "each nature preserves its own manner of being" and "meets the other (nature) in the single hypostasis." Their Christology seems to indicate that the deification of the humanity of Christ suppresses the reality of the properly human natural character.

After the Iconoclast Council of 754 the debate centers on two problems: that of the image and that of the prototype. The Iconoclasts in the argument about the image stated that every image must necessarily be identical with the divine Model: an "image of God," fabricated or painted, is therefore essentially an idol, since it pretends to "be God." On this point the Orthodox called on tradition to show that the concept of image could in no way be reduced to an identification with the Model. Only the Son and the Spirit are natural images," consubstantial to the Father, their Model, although different through their hypostasis. For a precise Orthodox definition of the cult of images we turn to the writings of St. John of Damascus and, especially, those writings of St. Theodore the Studite. The image, essentially distinct from the original, is an object of relative veneration or honor, while worship is reserved for God alone and can in no way be addressed to images. The religious action is addressed to the prototype, and then becomes adoration. Thus the same action is veneration insofar as it concerns the image of Christ, the Theotokos, and the Saints, and adoration or worship insofar as it is addressed to God. Orthodoxy made accusations of idolatry against the Latin Church when Thomas Aquinas himself admitted a "relative adoration" of the images. Thus we should not make images of God. "If someone dares make an image of the immaterial and in corporal divinity, we repudiate him," writes St. John of Damascus. The Logos Himself, before the Incarnation, could not be represented: He is the image of the Father, but that image cannot be materially reproduced. It is not only vain, but it is stupid, to limit spatially the unincarnate Word . . . "it is idolatry," writes St. Theodore.

The Orthodox polemic against iconoclasm insisted first on the fullness of the human nature in Christ, thus largely recovering the Christological tradition of Antioch. Theodore the Studite's conception is "Christ was certainly not a mere man, neither is it Orthodox to say that he assumed an individual among men, but the whole, the totality of the nature. It must be said, however, that this total nature was contemplated in an individual manner-for otherwise how could it have been seen-in a way that made it visible and describable . ., which allowed it to eat and drink...?"

St. Nicephorus also stressed the human reality of Jesus, his experience of tiredness, of hunger, of thirst, and of human ignorance.

The main argument of the Orthodox polemicists against iconoclasm was the position of the Tome of Leo and of the Council of Chalcedon on the permanence of the characteristics proper to each of the two natures in Christ: 'The Inconceivable is conceived in the womb of a Virgin, the Unmeasurable becomes three cubits high; the Unqualifiable acquires a quality; the Undefinable stands up, sits down and lies down: He who is everywhere is put into a crib; He who is above time gradually reaches the age of twelve; He who is formless appears with the shape of a man and the Incorporeal enters into a body . . . , therefore the same is describable and indescribable.

It is the Iconoclasts' implicit Monophysitism that gives the Orthodox the opportunity to prove that their tradition remains based on Chalcedon, and faithful to what was fundamentally true in Antiochian Christology: the human reality of the historical Jesus. St. Theodore the Studite, in particular, bases the whole of his theology of icons on the doctrine of the hypostatic union. For Theodore, the very hypostasis of Christ is describable, and it is represented on the image. The Byzantine tradition, representing Christ with the letters o wh - "He who is," the translation of the tetragrammaton YHWH-inscribed in the cross-shaped halo around the face of Jesus, well indicates the intention to see in the image the very hypostasis of the Son of God, no doubt invisible in its divinity, but having become visible in the human nature it had assumed. To Theodore "all portrait is, in any case, the portrait of a hypostasis, and not of a nature, . . . the image and the similitude with the prototype can only refer to one hypostasis and not to two."

Thus it is only the personalism of patristic theology that makes it possible to overcome the essential dilemma of the iconclastic controversy and provides a solid basis for the veneration of images in the Orthodox Church.

The image of Christ, venerated by the Christians, bears witness to the reality of the Eucharist. The image of Christ is the visible and necessary witness to the reality and humanity of Christ. In this sense the Christian artist can be compared to God. "The fact that God made man in His image and resemblance shows that iconography is a divine action." The artist, like God in the beginning, in representing Christ makes an "image of God" by painting the deified humanity of Jesus, hypostatized in the Word Himself. "From the moment the divinity united itself to our nature, our nature was glorified like some life-giving and wholesome medicine, and received access to incorruptibility: this is why the death of the saints is celebrated, temples are built in their honor, and their images are painted and venerated. The essence of the image is not venerated, but the form of the prototype represented by the image, . . . for it is not matter which is the object of veneration."

No better conclusion could be drawn than that of the Kontakion for the First Sunday of Great Lent, known as Orthodoxy Sunday, which commemorates the victory of Orthodoxy over the Iconoclasts. The Kontakion reads:

"No one could describe the Word of the Father; but when He took flesh from you, O Theotokos, He accepted to be described, and restored the fallen image to its former state by uniting it to divine beauty. We confess and proclaim our salvation in word and images."

Byzantine iconoclasm
A thorough understanding of the Iconoclastic Period in Byzantium is complicated by the circumstance that much of what exists as accounts and arguments of the time comes to us through the filter of the writings of the ultimate victors in the controversy, the iconodules. It is thus difficult to obtain a complete, objective, balanced, and reliably accurate account of events and various aspects of the controversy.

The first iconoclastic period: 730-787
Sometime between 726-730 the Byzantine Emperor Leo III the Syrian or "Isaurian," (reigned 717-741; born in eastern Turkey) ordered the removal of an image of Jesus prominently placed over the palace gate of Constantinople. At least some of those assigned to the task were murdered by a band of iconodules (see Theophanes, Chronographia). Writings suggest that at least part of the reason for the removal may have been military reversals against the Muslims and the eruption of the volcanic island of Thera [1], which Leo possibly viewed as evidence of the wrath of God brought on by image veneration in the Church (according to accounts by Patriarch Nikephoros and the chronicler Theophanes). Leo is said to have described image veneration as "a craft of idolatry." He apparently forbade the worship of religious images in a 730 edict, which did not apply to other forms of art, including the image of the emperor, or even religious symbols such as the cross. "He saw no need to consult the church, and he appears to have been surprised by the depth of the popular opposition he encountered" (Warren Treadgold, A History of the Byzantine State and Society, Stanford University Press, 1997).

Germanus I of Constantinople, the iconodule Patriarch of Constantinople, either resigned or was deposed following the ban; letters Germanus wrote at the time say little of theology. "What worries Germanos is that the banning of images would only prove that the Church had been in error for a long time and so play into the hands of Jews and Muslims" (The Oxford History of Byzantium: Iconoclasm, Patricia Karlin-Hayter, Oxford University Press, 2002.) In the Western part of the Byzantine empire, Pope Gregory III held two synods at Rome and condemned Leo's actions, with the result that Leo seized some papal lands. During this initial period concern on both sides seems to have had little to do with theology and more with practical evidence and effects. Icon veneration was forbidden simply because Leo saw it as a violation of the biblical commandment forbidding making and venerating images. There was initially no church council or prominent patriarch or bishop calling for the removal or destruction of icons. During the destruction or obscuring of images, Leo "confiscated valuable church plate, altar cloths, and reliquaries decorated with religious figures" (History of the Byzantine State and Society, Warren Treadgold, Stanford University Press, 1997), but took no severe action against the former patriarch or iconophile bishops.

Leo died in 740, but his ban on icons was dogmatically confirmed under his son Constantine V (741-775) who summoned a council in Hieria in 754 ("the Iconoclast Council") in which some 330 to 340 bishops participated. This council became known as a Robber Council due to its uncanonical nature. Edward J. Martin writes (A History of the Iconoclastic Controversy , p.46), "On the ecumenical character of the Council there are graver doubts. Its president was Theodosius, archbishop of Ephesus, son of the Emperor Apsimar. He was supported by Sisinnius, bishop of Perga, also known as Pastillas, and by Basil of Antioch in Pisidia, styled Tricaccabus. Not a single Patriarch was present. The see of Constantinople was vacant. Whether the Pope and the Patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem were invited or not is unknown. They were not present either in person or by deputy. The Council of Nicaea [II] considered this was a serious flaw in the legitimacy of the Council. 'It had not the co-operation of the Roman Pope of the period nor of his clergy, either by representative or by encyclical letter, as the law of Councils requires.' [citing J. D. Mansi, XIII, 207d] The -Life of Stephen- borrows this objection from the Acts and embroiders it to suit the spirit of the age of Theodore. It had not the approval of the Pope of Rome, although there is a canon that no ecclesiastical measures may be passed without the Pope.' [citing Vit Steph, 1144c] The absence of the other Patriarchs is then noticed [Mansi above]."

The Iconoclast Council of Hieria was not the end of the matter, however. In this period complex theological arguments appeared, both for and against the use of icons. The monasteries were strongholds of icon veneration, and an underground network of iconodules was organized among monks. One Syrian monk, John of Damascus, was the major opponent of iconoclasm through his theological writings. Another, Theodore the Studite, wrote a letter against the emperor to Pope Paschal, an act with strong political implications. In a response recalling the later Protestant Reformation, Constantine moved against the monasteries, had relics thrown into the sea, and stopped the invocation of saints. Constantine's son, Leo IV (775-80) was less rigorous, trying to conciliate factions until near the end of his life, when he took severe measures against images and would have banned his secretly icon-venerating Athenian wife, Irene. But before that happened he died, and Irene took power as regent for her son, Constantine VI (780-97). With Irene's ascension as regent, the first Iconoclastic Period came to an end.

Irene initiated a new ecumenical council, ultimately called the Second Council of Nicaea, which first met in Constantinople in 786 but was disrupted by military units faithful to the iconoclast legacy; it convened again at Nicea in 787 and reversed the decrees of the previous iconoclast council held at Constantinople and Hieria, and appropriated its title as Seventh Ecumenical Council. So there were two councils called the "Seventh Ecumenical Council," the first supporting iconoclasm, the second supporting icon veneration and negating the first. The decrees of this council, unlike those of the iconoclast council, were approved by the papacy. Eastern Orthodoxy today considers it the last genuine ecumenical council. Icon veneration lasted through the reign of Empress Irene's successor, Nicephorus I (reigned 802-811), and the two brief reigns after his.

The second iconoclastic period: 814-842
Emperor Leo V (reigned 813–820) instituted a second period of Iconoclasm in 813, again possibly moved in part by military failures seen as indicative of divine displeasure. Leo was succeeded by Michael II, who in an 824 letter to Louis the Pious lamented the appearance of image veneration in the church and such practices as making icons baptismal godfathers to infants. He confirmed the decrees of the Iconoclast Council of 754.

Michael was succeeded by his son, Theophilus. Theophilus died leaving his wife Theodora regent for his minor heir, Michael III. Like Irene 50 years before her, Theodora mobilized the iconodules and proclaimed the restoration of icons in 843. Since that time the first Sunday of Lent is celebrated in the churches of the Orthodox tradition as the feast of the "Triumph of Orthodoxy".

Issues in Byzantine Iconoclasm

In this page of the Chludov Psalter, the anti-Iconoclast minuaturist illustrated the line "They gave me gall to eat; and when I was thirsty they gave me vinegar to drink" with a picture of a soldier offering Christ vinegar on a sponge attached to a pole. Below is a picture of an Iconoclast deleting the image of Christ with a similar sponge attached to a pole.

The chief theological opponents of iconoclasm were the monks Mansur (John of Damascus), who, living in Muslim territory as advisor to the Caliph of Damascus, was far enough away from the Byzantine emperor to evade retribution, and Theodore the Studite, who lived within the Empire.

John declared that he did not venerate matter, "but rather the creator of matter." However he also declared, "But I also venerate the matter through which salvation came to me, as if filled with divine energy and grace." He includes in this latter category the ink in which the gospels were written as well as the paint of images, the wood of the Cross, and the body and blood of Jesus.

The iconodule response to iconoclasm included:

Emperors had always intervened in ecclesiastical matters since the time of Constantine I; as Cyril Mango writes, "The legacy of Nicaea, the first universal council of the Church, was to bind the emperor to something that was not his concern, namely the definition and imposition of orthodoxy, if need be by force" (Oxford History of Byzantium, 2002). That practice continued from beginning to end of the Iconoclastic controversy and beyond, with some emperors enforcing iconoclasm, and two empresses regent enforcing the re-establishment of icon veneration. One distinction between the iconoclastic emperors and Constantine I is that the latter did not dictate the conclusion of the First Council of Nicaea before summoning it, whereas Leo III began enforcing a policy of iconoclasm more than twenty years before the Council of Hieria would endorse it.

Islamic iconoclasm
Because of the prohibition against figural decoration in Islam the Taliban in 2001 destroyed the monumental statues of the Buddha at Bamiyan.

Historically, despite a religious prohibition on destroying or converting houses of worship, conquering Muslim armies would use local temples or houses of worship as mosques. An example is the Hagia Sophia, Church of the Holy Wisdom, in Istanbul, formerly Constantinople which was converted into a mosque in 1453, when its mosaics were covered with plaster instead of being destroyed. Similar acts of iconoclasm occurred in parts of north Africa.

Reformation iconoclasm
Some of the Protestant reformers, in particular Andreas Karlstadt, Huldrych Zwingli and John Calvin encouraged the destruction of religious images by invoking the Decalogue's prohibition of idolatry and the manufacture of graven images of God. As a result, statues and images were damaged in spontaneous individual attacks as well as unauthorised iconoclastic riots. However, in most cases images were removed in an orderly manner by civil authorities in the newly reformed cities and territories of Europe.

Significant iconoclastic riots took place in Zürich (in 1523), Copenhagen (1530), Münster (1534), Geneva (1535), Augsburg (1537) and Scotland (1559). The Seventeen Provinces (now the Netherlands and Belgium) were hit by a large wave of Protestant iconoclasm in the summer of 1566. This is called the Beeldenstorm and included such acts as the destruction of the statuary of the Monastery of Saint Lawrence in Steenvoorde after a Hagenpreek, or field sermon, by Sebastiaan Matte; and the sacking of the Monastery of Saint Anthony after a sermon by Jacob de Buysere. The Beeldenstorm marked the start of the revolution against the Spanish forces and the Catholic church. See Flanders for more on its history.

In England, Bishop Joseph Hall of Norwich described the events of 1643 when troops and citizens, encouraged by a Parliamentary ordinance against superstition and idolatry, behaved thus:

'Lord what work was here! What clattering of glasses!

What beating down of walls! What tearing up of monuments! What pulling down of seats! What wresting out of irons and brass from the windows! What defacing of arms! What demolishing of curious stonework! What tooting and piping upon organ pipes! And what a hideous triumph in the market-place before all the country, when all the mangled organ pipes, vestments, both copes and surplices, together with the leaden cross which had newly been sawn down from the Green-yard pulpit and the service-books and singing books that could be carried to the fire in the public market-place were heaped together'.

Protestant Christianity, however, was not uniformly hostile to the use of religious images. Martin Luther argued that Christians should be free to use religious images as long as they did not worship them in the place of God.

The Iconoclastic Controversy

Although there was intermittent opposition to the veneration of images in the first seven centuries of the church, the issue first became a major point of controversy in the eighth century. The iconoclastic controversy began in earnest under Emperor Leo III (r. 716-41), a strong-willed man who opposed the veneration of images and began to persecute those who did so. Leo's iconoclastic position may have been influenced by Khalifa Omar II (717-20), who was unsuccessful in trying to convert the emperor to Islam but probably convinced him that pictures and images are idols, but he was also convinced of this by Christian opponents of icons who gained his ear.

In 726 AD, Leo III published an edict declaring images to be idols, forbidden by Exodus 10:4-5. He commanded that all such images in churches be destroyed, and the soldiers immediately began to carry out his orders throughout the empire. There was a famous picture of Christ, called Christos antiphonetes, over the gate of the palace at Constantinople, the destruction of which provoked a serious riot among the people.

Germanus, the patriarch of Constantinople, protested against the edict and appealed to the pope (729). But the emperor deposed him as a traitor (730) and had Anastasius (730-54), a willing instrument of the government, appointed in his place. The most steadfast opponents of the Iconoclasts throughout this story were the monks. It is true that there were some who took the side of the emperor but as a body, eastern monasticism was steadfastly loyal to the old custom of the Church. Leo therefore joined with his iconoclasm a fierce persecution of monasteries and eventually tried to suppress monasticism altogether.

Pope Gregory II (r. 713-31) responded to the appeal of the deposed patriarch with a long defense of images. He explains the difference between them and idols, with some surprise that Leo does not already understand the distinction. But Leo remained steadfast and the persecution continued to rage in the East. Monasteries were destroyed and monks were put to death, tortured, or banished. The Iconoclasts began to apply their principle to relics also, to break open shrines and burn the bodies of saints buried in churches.

At the same time, St. John of Damascus (d. 754), safe from the emperor's anger under the rule of the Khalifa was writing at the monastery of St. Saba his famous apologies "against those who destroy the holy icons." In the West, at Rome, Ravenna, and Naples, the people rose against the emperor's law.

In 731, Pope Gregory II was succeeded by Gregory III, who in that same year held a synod of 93 bishops at St. Peter's. All persons who broke, defiled, or took images of Christ, of His Mother, the Apostles or other saints were declared excommunicate. Leo then sent a fleet to Italy to punish the pope but it was wrecked and dispersed by a storm. Meanwhile every kind of calamity afflicted the empire; earthquakes, pestilence, and famine devastated the provinces while the Muslims continued their victorious career and conquered further territory.

Leo III died in June, 741, in the midst of these troubles, without having changed policy. His work was carried on by his son Constantine V (Copronymus, 741-775), who became an even greater persecutor of image-worshippers than had been his father. In 754 Constantine, taking up his father's original idea summoned a great synod at Constantinople that was to count as the Seventh General Council. About 340 bishops attended, although the most important sees refused to sent representatives to the puppet council. The bishops at the synod servilely agreed to all Constantine's demands. They decreed that images of Christ are either Monophysite or Nestorian, for -- since it is impossible to represent His Divinity -- they either confound or divorce His two natures. A special curse was pronounced against three chief defenders of images -- Germanus, the former Patriarch of Constantinople, John of Damascus, and a monk, George of Cyprus.

The Emperor Constantine V died in 775. His son Leo IV (775-80), although he did not repeal the Iconoclast law was much milder in enforcing them. He allowed the exiled monks to come back, tolerated at least the intercession of saints and tried to reconcile all parties. When Leo IV died, the Empress Irene was regent for her son Constantine VI (780-97), who was nine years old when his father died. She immediately set about undoing the work of the Iconoclast emperors. Pictures and relics were restored to the churches; monasteries were reopened.

Finally, the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Empress Irene sent an embassy to Pope Adrian I (772-95) acknowledging his primacy and begging him to come himself, or at least to send legates to a council that should undo the work of the Iconoclast synod of 754. The petition was granted, and about 300 bishops attended a council in Nicea, the site of the first ecumenical council, from 24 September to 23 October, 787.

The Second Council of Nicea confirmed the use of icons, condemned the Iconoclast leaders, and in opposition to the formula of the Iconoclast synod, declared of Germanus, John Damascene and George of Cyprus: "The Trinity has made these three glorious."

Twenty-seven years after this council, iconoclasm broke out again. The icons were again restored in 842, after which the iconoclastic movement gradually died out in the east. Icons continue to be a major part of Orthodox worship and devotion to this day. The Catholic Church continues to venerate images as well, though such images are not as central in the West as they are in the East. The Protestant Reformers generally opposed the use of icons, and icons continue to be generally avoided by most Protestants today.

Iconoclasm

Iconoclasm (Eikonoklasmos, "Image-breaking") is the name of the heresy that in the eighth and ninth centuries disturbed the peace of the Eastern Church, caused the last of the many breaches with Rome that prepared the way for the schism of Photius, and was echoed on a smaller scale in the Frankish kingdom in the West. The story in the East is divided into two separate persecutions of the Catholics, at the end of each of which stands the figure of an image-worshipping Empress (Irene and Theodora).

I. THE FIRST ICONOCLAST PERSECUTION

The origin of the movement against the worship (for the use of this word see IMAGES, VENERATION OF) of images has been much discussed. It has been represented as an effect of Moslem influence. To Moslems, any kind of picture, statue, or representation of the human form is an abominable idol. It is true that, in a sense, the Khalifa at Damascus began the whole disturbance, and that the Iconoclast emperors were warmly applauded and encouraged in their campaign by their rivals at Damascus. On the other hand it is not likely that the chief cause of the emperor's zeal against pictures was the example of his bitter enemy, the head of the rival religion. A more probable origin will be found in the opposition to pictures that had existed for some time among Christians. There seems to have been a dislike of holy pictures, a suspicion that their use was, or might become, idolatrous among certain Christians for many centuries before the Iconoclast persecution began (see IMAGES, VENERATION OF). The Paulicians, as part of their heresy held that all matter (especially the human body) is bad, that all external religious forms, sacraments, rites, especially material pictures and relics, should be abolished. To honour the Cross was especially reprehensible, since Christ had not really been crucified. Since the seventh century these heretics had been allowed to have occasional great influence at Constantinople intermittently with suffering very cruel persecution (see PAULICIANS). But some Catholics, too shared their dislike of pictures and relics. In the beginning of the eighth century several bishops, Constantine of Nacolia in Phrygia, Theodosius of Ephesus, Thomas of Claudiopolis, and others are mentioned as having these views. A Nestorian bishop, Xenaeas of Hierapolis, was a conspicuous forerunner of the Iconoclasts (Hardouin, IV, 306). It was when this party got the ear of the Emperor Leo III (the Isaurian, 716-41) that the persecution began.

The first act in the story is a similar persecution in the domain of the Khalifa at Damascus. Yezid I (680-683) and his successors, especially Yezid II (720-24), thinking, like good Moslems, that all pictures are idols, tried to prevent their use among even their Christian subjects. But this Moslem persecution, in itself only one of many such intermittent annoyances to the Christians of Syria, is unimportant except as the forerunner of the troubles in the empire. Leo the Isaurian was a valiant soldier with an autocratic temper. Any movement that excited his sympathy was sure to be enforced sternly and cruelly. He had already cruelly persecuted the Jews and Paulicians. He was also suspected of leanings towards Islam. The Khalifa Omar II (717-20) tried to convert him, without success except as far as persuading him that pictures are idols. The Christian enemies of images, notably Constantine of Nacolia, then easily gained his ear. The emperor came to the conclusion that images were the chief hindrance to the conversion of Jews and Moslems, the cause of superstition, weakness, and division in his empire, and opposed to the First Commandment. The campaign against images as part of a general reformation of the Church and State. Leo III's idea was to purify the Church, centralize it as much as possible under the Patriarch of Constantinople, and thereby strengthen and centralize the State of the empire. There was also a strong rationalistic tendency among there Iconoclast emperors, a reaction against the forms of Byzantine piety that became more pronounced each century. This rationalism helps to explain their hatred of monks. Once persuaded, Leo began to enforce his idea ruthlessly. Constantine of Nacolia came to the capital in the early part of his reign; at the same time John of Synnada wrote to the patriarch Germanus I (715-30), warning him that Constantine had made a disturbance among the other bishops of the province by preaching against the use of holy pictures. Germanus, the first of the heroes of the image-worshippers (his letters in Hardouin, IV 239-62), then wrote a defence of the practice of the Church addressed to another Iconoclast, Thomas of Claudiopolis (l. c. 245-62). But Constantine and Thomas had the emperor on their side. In 726 Leo III published an edict declaring images to be idols, forbidden by Exodus, xx, 4, 5, and commanding all such images in churches to be destroyed. At once the soldiers began to carry out his orders, whereby disturbances were provoked throughout the empire. There was a famous picture of Christ, called Christos antiphonetes, over the gate of the palace at Constantinople. The destruction of this picture provoked a serious riot among the people. Germanus, the patriarch, protested against the edict and appealed to the pope (729). But the emperor deposed him as a traitor (730) and had Anastasius (730-54), formerly syncellus of the patriarchal Court, and a willing instrument of the Government, appointed in his place. The most steadfast opponents of the Iconoclasts throughout this story were the monks. It is true that there were some who took the side of the emperor but as a body Eastern monasticism was steadfastly loyal to the old custom of the Church. Leo therefore joined with his Iconoclasm a fierce persecution of monasteries and eventually tried to suppress monasticism altogether.

The pope at that time was Gregory II (713-31). Even before he had received the appeal of Germanus a letter came from the emperor commanding him to accept the edict, destroy images at Rome, and summon a general council to forbid their use. Gregory answered, in 727, by a long defence of the pictures. He explains the difference between them and idols, with some surprise that Leo does not already understand it. He describes the lawful use of, and reverence paid to, pictures by Christians. He blames the emperor's interference in ecclesiastical matters and his persecution of image-worshippers. A council is not wanted; all Leo has to do is to stop disturbing the peace of the Church. As for Leo's threat that he will come to Rome, break the statue of St. Peter (apparently the famous bronze statue in St. Peter's), and take the pope prisoner, Gregory answers it by pointing out that he can easily escape into the Campagna, and reminding the emperor how futile and now abhorrent to all Christians was Constans's persecution of Martin I. He also says that all people in the West detest the emperor's action and will never consent to destroy their images at his command (Greg. II, "Ep. I ad Leonem"). The emperor answered, continuing his argument by saying that no general council had yet said a word in favour of images that he himself is emperor and priest (basileus kai lereus) in one and therefore has the right to make decrees about such matters. Gregory writes back regretting that Leo does not yet see the error of his ways. As for the former general Councils, they did not pretend to discuss every point of the faith; it was unnecessary in those days to defend what no one attacked. The title Emperor and Priest had been conceded as a compliment to some sovereigns because of their zeal in defending the very faith that Leo now attacked. The pope declares himself determined to withstand the emperor's tyranny at any cost, though he has no defense but to pray that Christ will send a demon to torture the emperor's body that his soul be saved, according to 1 Corinthians 5:5.

Meanwhile the persecution raged in the East. Monasteries were destroyed, monks put to death, tortured, or banished. The Iconoclasts began to apply their principle to relics also, to break open shrines and burn the bodies of saints buried in churches. Some of them rejected all intercession of saints. These and other points (destruction of relics and rejection of prayers to saints), though not necessarily involved in the original program are from this time generally (not quite always) added to Iconoclasm. Meanwhile, St. John Damascene (d. 754). safe from the emperor's anger under the rule of the Khalifa was writing at the monastery of St Saba his famous apologies "against those who destroy the holy icons". In the West, at Rome, Ravenna, and Naples, the people rose against the emperor's law. This anti-imperial movement is one of the factors of the breach between Italy and the old empire, the independence of the papacy, and the beginning of the Papal States. Gregory II already refused to send taxes to Constantinople and himself appointed the imperial dux in the Ducatos Romanus. From this time the pope becomes practically sovereign of the Ducatus. The emperor's anger against image-worshippers was strengthened by a revolt that broke out about this time in Hellas, ostensibly in favour of the icons. A certain Cosmas was set up as emperor by the rebels. The insurrection was soon crushed (727), and Cosmas was beheaded. After this a new and severer edict against images was published (730), and the fury of the persecution was redoubled.

Pope Gregory II died in 731. He was succeeded at once by Gregory III, who carried on the defence of holy images in exactly the spirit of his predecessor. The new pope sent a priest, George, with letters against Iconoclasm to Constantinople. But George when he arrived, was afraid to present them, and came back without having accomplished his mission. He was sent a second time on the same errand, but was arrested and imprisoned in Sicily by the imperial governor. The emperor now proceeded with his policy of enlarging and strengthening his own patriarchate at Constantinople. He conceived the idea of making it as great as all the empire over which he still actually ruled. Isauria, Leo's birthplace, was taken from Antioch by an imperial edict and added to the Byzantine patriarchate, increasing it by the Metropolis, Seleucia, and about twenty other sees. Leo further pretended to withdraw Illyricum from the Roman patriarchate and to add it to that of Constantinople, and confiscated all the property of the Roman See on which he could lay his hands, in Sicily and Southern Italy. This naturally increased the enmity between Eastern and Western Christendom. In 731 Gregory III held a synod of ninety-three bishops at St. Peter's in which all persons who broke, defiled, or took images of Christ, of His Mother, the Apostles or other saints were declared excommunicate. Another legate, Constantine, was sent with a copy of the decree and of its application to the emperor, but was again arrested and imprisoned in Sicily. Leo then sent a fleet to Italy to punish the pope; but it was wrecked and dispersed by a storm. Meanwhile every kind of calamity afflicted the empire; earthquakes, pestilence, and famine devastated the provinces while the Moslems continued their victorious career and conquered further territory.

Leo III died in June, 741, in the midst of these troubles, without having changed policy. His work was carried on by his son Constantine V (Copronymus, 741-775), who became an even greater persecutor of image-worshippers than had been his father. As soon as Leo III was dead, Artabasdus (who had married Leo's daughter) seized the opportunity and took advantage of the unpopularity of the Iconoclast Government to raise a rebellion. Declaring himself the protector of the holy icons he took possession of the capital, had himself crowned emperor by the pliant patriarch Anastasius and immediately restored the images. Anastasius, who had been intruded in the place of Germanus as the Iconoclast candidate, now veered round in the usual Byzantine way, helped the restoration of the images and excommunicated Constantine V as a heretic and denier of Christ. But Constantine marched on the city, took it, blinded Artabasdus and began a furious revenge on all rebels and image-worshippers (743). His treatment of Anastasius is a typical example of the way these later emperors behaved towards the patriarchs through whom they tried to govern the Church. Anastasius was flogged in public, blinded, driven shamefully through the streets, made to return to his Iconoclasm and finally reinstated as patriarch. The wretched man lived on till 754. The pictures restored by Artabasdus were again removed. In 754 Constantine, taking up his father's original idea summoned a great synod at Constantinople that was to count as the Seventh General Council. About 340 bishops attended; as the See of Constantinople was vacant by the death of Anastasius, Theodosius of Ephesus and Pastilias of Perge presided. Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem refused to send legates, since it was clear that the bishops were summoned merely to carry out the emperor's commands. The event showed that the patriarchs had judged rightly. The bishops at the synod servilely agreed to all Constantine's demands. They decreed that images of Christ are either Monophysite or Nestorian, for -- since it is impossible to represent His Divinity -- they either confound or divorce His two natures. The only lawful representation of Christ is the Holy Eucharist. Images of saints are equally to be abhorred; it is blasphemous to represent by dead wood or stone those who live with God. All images are an invention of the pagans -- are in fact idols, as shown by Ex xx, 4, 5; Deut. v, 8; John iv, 24; Rom. i, 23-25. Certain texts of the Fathers are also quoted in support of Iconoclasm. Image-worshippers are idolaters, adorers of wood and stone; the Emperors Leo and Constantine are lights of the Orthodox faith, our saviours from idolatry. A special curse is pronounced against three chief defenders of images -- Germanus, the former Patriarch of Constantinople, John Damascene, and a monk, George of Cyprus. The synod declares that "the Trinity has destroyed these three" ("Acts of the Iconoclast Synod of 754" in Mansi XIII, 205 sq.).

The bishops finally elected a successor to the vacant see of Constantinople, Constantine, bishop of Sylaeum (Constantine II, 754-66), who was of course a creature of the Government, prepared to carry on its campaign. The decrees were published in the Forum on 27 August, 754. After this the destruction of pictures went on with renewed zeal. All the bishops of the empire were required to sign the Acts of the synod and to swear to do away with icons in their dioceses. The Paulicians were now treated well, while image-worshippers and monks were fiercely persecuted. Instead of paintings of saints the churches were decorated with pictures of flowers, fruit, and birds, so that the people said that they looked like grocery stores and bird shops. A monk Peter was scourged to death on 7 June, 761; the Abbot of Monagria, John, who refused to trample on an icon, was tied up in a sack and thrown into the sea on 7 June, 761; in 767 Andrew, a Cretan monk, was flogged and lacerated till he died (see the Acta SS., 8 Oct.; Roman Martyrology for 17 Oct.); in November of the same year a great number of monks were tortured to death in various ways (Martyrology, 28 Nov.). The emperor tried to abolish monasticism (as the centre of the defence of images); monasteries were turned into barracks; the monastic habit was forbidden; the patriarch Constantine II was made to swear in the ambo of his church that although formerly a monk, he had now joined the secular clergy. Relics were dug up and thrown into the sea, the invocation of saints forbidden. In 766 the emperor fell foul of his patriarch, had him scourged and beheaded and replaced by Nicetas I (766-80), who was, naturally also an obedient servant of the Iconoclast Government. Meanwhile the countries which the emperors power did not reach kept the old custom and broke communion with the Iconoclast Patriarch of Constantinople and his bishops. Cosmas of Alexandria, Theodore of Antioch, and Theodore of Jerusalem were all defenders of the holy icons in communion with Rome. The Emperor Constantine V died in 775. His son Leo IV (775-80), although he did not repeal the Iconoclast law was much milder in enforcing them. He allowed the exiled monks to come back, tolerated at least the intercession of saints and tried to reconcile all parties. When the patriarch Nicetas I died in 780 he was succeeded by Paul IV (780-84), a Cypriote monk who carried on a half-hearted Iconoclast policy only through fear of the Government. But Leo IV's wife Irene was a steadfast image-worshipper. Even during her husband's life she concealed ho}y icons in her rooms. At the end of his reign Leo had a burst of fiercer Iconoclasm. He punished the courtiers who had replaced images in their apartments and was about to banish the empress when he died 8 September, 780. At once a complete reaction set in.

II. THE SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL (NICEA II, 787)

The Empress Irene was regent for her son Constantine VI (780-97), who was nine years old when his father died. She immediately set about undoing the work of the Iconoclast emperors. Pictures and relics were restored to the churches; monasteries were reopened. Fear of the army, now fanatically Iconoclast, kept her for a time from repealing the laws; but she only waited for an opportunity to do so and to restore the broken communion with Rome and the other patriarchates. The Patriarch of Constantinople, Paul IV, resigned and retired to a monastery, giving openly as his reason repentance for his former concessions to the Iconoclast Government. He was succeeded by a pronounced image-worshipper, Tarasius. Tarasius and the empress now opened negotiations with Rome. They sent an embassy to Pope Adrian I (772-95) acknowledging the primacy and begging him to come himself, or at least to send legates to a council that should undo the work of the Iconoclast synod of 754. The pope answered by two letters, one for the empress and one for the patriarch. In these he repeats the arguments for the worship of images agrees to the proposed council, insists on the authority of the Holy See, and demands the restitution of the property confiscated by Leo III. He blames the sudden elevation of Tarasius (who from being a layman had suddenly become patriarch), and rejects his title of Ecumenical Patriarch, but he praises his orthodoxy and zeal for the holy images. Finally, he commits all these matters to the judgment of his legates. These legates were an archpriest Peter and the abbot Peter of St. Saba near Rome. The other three patriarchs were unable to answer, they did not even receive Tarasius's letters, because of the disturbance at that time in the Moslem state. But two monks, Thomas, abbot of an Egyptian monastery and John Syncellus of Antioch, appeared with letters from their communities explaining the state of things and showing that the patriarchs had always remained faithful to the images. These two seem to have acted in some sort as legates for Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem.

Tarasius opened the synod in the church of the Apostles at Constantinople. in August, 786; but it was at once dispersed by the Iconoclast soldiers. The empress disbanded those troops and replaced them by others; it was arranged that the synod should meet at Nicaea in Bithynia, the place of the first general council. The bishops met here in the summer of 787, about 300 in number. The council lasted from 24 September to 23 October. The Roman legates were present; they signed the Acts first and always had the first place in the list of members, but Tarasius conducted the proceeding, apparently because the legates could not speak Greek. In the first three sessions Tarasius gave an account of the events that had led up to the Council, the papal and other letters were read out, and many repentant Iconoclast bishops were reconciled. The fathers accepted the pope's letters as true formulas of the Catholic Faith. Tarasius, when he read the letters, left out the passages about the restitution of the confiscated papal properties, the reproaches against his own sudden elevation and use of the title Ecumenical Patriarch, and modified (but not essentially) the assertions of the primacy. The fourth session established the reasons for which the use of holy images is lawful, quoting from the Old Testament passages about images in the temple (Exodus 25:18-22; Numbers 7:89; Ezekiel 41:18-19; Hebrews 9:5), and also citing a great number of the Fathers. Euthymius of Sardes at the end of the session read a profession of faith in this sense. In the fifth session Tarasius explained that Iconoclasm came from Jews, Saracens, and heretics; some Iconoclast misquotations were exposed, their books burnt, and an icon set up in the hall in the midst of the fathers. The sixth session was occupied with the Iconoclast synod of 754; its claim to be a general council was denied, because neither the pope nor the three other patriarchs had a share in it. The decree of that synod (see above) was refuted clause by clause. The seventh session drew up the symbol (horos) of the council, in which, after repeating the Nicene Creed and renewing the condemnation of all manner of former heretics, from Arians to Monothelites, the fathers make their definition. Images are to receive veneration (proskynesis), not adoration (latreia); the honour paid to them is only relative (schetike), for the sake of their prototype (for the text of this, the essential definition of the council, see IMAGES, VENERATION OF). Anathemas are pronounced against the Iconoclast leaders; Germanus, John Damascene, and George of Cyprus are praised. In opposition to the formula of the Iconoclast synod the fathers declare: "The Trinity has made these three glorious" (he Trias tous treis edoxasen). A deputation was sent to the empress with the Acts of the synod; a letter the clergy of Constantinople acquainted them with its decision. Twenty-two canons were drawn up, of which these are the chief:

An eighth and last session was held on 23 October at Constantinople in the presence of Irene and her son. After a discourse by Tarasius the Acts were read out and signed by all, including the empress and the emperor. The synod was closed with the usual Polychronia or formal acclamation, and Epiphanius, a deacon of Catania in Sicily, preached a sermon to the assembled fathers.

Tarasius sent to Pope Adrian an account of all that had happened, and Adrian approved the Acts (letter to Charles the Great) and had them translated into Latin. But the question of the property of the Holy See in Southern Italy and the friendship of the pope towards the Franks still caused had feeling between East and West; moreover an Iconoclast party still existed at Constantinople, especially in the army.

III. THE SECOND ICONOCLAST PERSECUTION

Twenty-seven years after the Synod of Nicaea, Iconoclasm broke out again. Again the holy pictures were destroyed, and their defenders fiercely persecuted. For twenty-eight years the former story was repeated with wonderful exactness. The places of Leo III, Constantine V, and Leo IV are taken by a new line of Iconoclast emperors -- Leo V, Michael II, Theophilus. Pope Paschal I acts just as did Gregory II, the faithful Patriarch Nicephorus stands for Germanus I, St. John Damascene lives again in St. Theodore the Studite. Again one synod rejects icons, and another, following it, defends them. Again an empress, regent for her young son, puts an end to the storm and restores the old custom -- this time finally.

The origin of this second outbreak is not far to seek. There had remained, especially in the army, a considerable Iconoclast party. Constantine V, their hero had been a valiant and successful general against the Moslems, Michael I (811-13), who kept the Faith of the Second Council of Nicaea, was singularly unfortunate in his attempt to defend the empire. The Iconoclasts looked back regretfully to the glorious campaigns of his predecessor, they evolved the amazing conception of Constantine as a saint, they went in pilgrimage to his grave and cried out to him: "Arise come back and save the perishing empire". When Michael I, in June, 813, was utterly defeated by the Bulgars and fled to his capital, the soldiers forced him to resign his crown and set up one of the generals Leo the Armenian (Leo V, 813-20) in his place. An officer (Theodotus Cassiteras) and a monk (the Abbot John Grammaticus) persuaded the new emperor that all the misfortunes of the empire were a judgment of God on the idolatry of image-worship. Leo, once persuaded, used all his power to put down the icons, and so all the trouble began again.

In 814 the Iconoclasts assembled at the palace and prepared an elaborate attack against images, repeating almost exactly the arguments of the synod of 754. The Patriarch of Constantinople was Nicephorus I (806-15), who became one of the chief defenders of images in this second persecution. The emperor invited him to a discussion of the question with the Iconoclasts; he refused since it had been already settled by the Seventh General Council. The work of demolishing images began again. The picture of Christ restored by Irene over the iron door of the palace, was again removed. In 815 the patriarch was summoned to the emperor's presence. He came surrounded by bishops, abbots, and monks, and held a long discussion with Leo and his Iconoclast followers. Inn he same year the emperor summoned a synod of bishops, who, obeying his orders, deposed the patriarch and elected Theodotus Cassiteras (Theodotus I, 815-21) to succeed him. Nicephorus was banished across the Bosporus. Till his death in 829, he defended the cause of the images by controversial writings (the "Lesser Apology", "Antirrhetikoi", "Greater Apology", etc. in P. G., C, 201-850; Pitra, "Spicileg. Solesm.", I, 302-503; IV, 233, 380), wrote a history of his own time (Historia syntomos, P. G., C, 876-994) and a general chronography from Adam (chronographikon syntomon, in P. G., C, 995-1060). Among the monks who accompanied Nicephorus to the emperor's presence in 815 was Theodore, Abbot of the Studium monastery at Constantinople (d. 826). Throughout this second Iconoclast persecution St. Theodore (Theodorus Studita) was the leader of the faithful monks, the chief defender of the icons. He comforted and encouraged Nicephorus in his resistance to the emperor, was three times banished by the Government, wrote a great number of treatises controversial letters, and apologies in various forms for the images. His chief point is that Iconoclasts are Christological heretics, since they deny an essential element of Christ's human nature, namely, that it can be represented graphically. This amounts to a denial of its reality and material quality, whereby Iconoclasts revive the old Monophysite heresy. Ehrhard judges St. Theodore to be "perhaps the most ingenious [der scharfsinnigste] of the defenders of the cult of images" (in Krumbacher's "Byz. Litt.", p. 150). In any case his position can be rivalled only by that of St. John Damascene. (See his work in P. G., XCIX; for an account of them see Krumbacher, op. cit., 147-151, 712-715; his life by a contemporary monk, P. G., XCIX, 9 sq.) His feast is on 11 Nov. in the Byzantine Rite, 12 Nov. in the Roman Martyrology.

The first thing the new patriarch Theodotus did was to hold a synod which condemned the council of 787 (the Second Nicene) and declared its adherence to that of 754. Bishops, abbots, clergy, and even officers of the Government who would not accept its decree were deposed, banished, tortured. Theodore of Studium refused communion with the Iconoclast patriarch, and went into exile. A number of persons of all ranks were put to death at this time, and his references; pictures of all kinds were destroyed everywhere. Theodore appealed to the pope (Paschal I, 817-824) in the name of the persecuted Eastern image-worshippers. At the same time Theodotus the Iconoclast patriarch, sent legates to Rome, who were, however not admitted by the pope, since Theodotus was a schismatical intruder in the see of which Nicephorus was still lawful bishop. But Paschal received the monks sent by Theodoret and gave up the monastery of St. Praxedes to them and others who had fled from the persecution in the East. In 818 the pope sent legates to the emperor with a letter defending the icons and once more refuting the Iconoclast accusation of idolatry. In this letter he insists chiefly on our need of exterior signs for invisible things: sacraments, words, the sign of the Cross. and all tangible signs of this kind; how, then, can people who a admit these reject images? (The fragment of this letter that has been preserved is published in Pitra, "Spicileg. Solesm.". II, p. xi sq.). The letter did not have any effect on the emperor; but it is from this time especially that the Catholics in the East turn with more loyalty than ever to Rome as their leader, their last refuge in the persecution. The well-known texts of St. Theodore in which he defends the primacy in the strongest possible language -- e. g., "Whatever novelty is brought into the Church by those who wander from the truth must certainly be referred to Peter or to his successor . . . . Save us, chief pastor of the Church under heaven" (Ep. i, 33, P. G.., XCIX, 1018); "Arrange that a decision be received from old Rome as the custom has been handed down from the beginning by the tradition of our fathers" (Ep. ii, 36; ibid., 1331 --were written during this persecution).

The protestations of loyalty to old Rome made by the Orthodox and Catholic Christians of the Byzantine Church at the time are her last witness immediately before the Great Schism. There were then two separate parties in the East having no communion with each other: the Iconoclast persecutors under the emperor with their anti-patriarch Theodotus, and the Catholics led by Theodore the Studite acknowledging the lawful patriarch Nicephorus and above him the distant Latin bishop who was to them the "chief pastor of the Church under heaven". On Christmas Day, 820, Leo V ended his tyrannical reign by being murdered in a palace revolution that set up one of his generals, Michael II (the Stammerer, 820-29) as emperor. Michael was als