However, Orthodox Christians most often associate icons with paintings on wood.
The first Christian images appeared around the third
century. That could be an indication that for the first two hundred years of its
existence, the new religion, probably affected by its Jewish roots and the
Second Commandment, "Thou shall not make unto thee any graven images"
(Exodus 20:4), objected to representational sacred art, particularly to any
representation of the Deity.
When Christians finally turned to art to aid them in
promoting the religion, they found many convertible examples in the earlier art
of mystery religions and in the pagan art of the Roman Empire. Naturally, they
incorporated various elements from a number of sources: from Hellenic art they
borrowed gracefulness and clarity of composition; from the Roman art they took
the hierarchical placement of figures and symmetry of design; from Syrian art
they took dynamic movements and energy of the represented characters; and from
Egyptian funeral portraits they borrowed large almond-shaped eyes, long and thin
noses, and small mouths. By the time Christianity became the official religion
of the Byzantine Empire (313 AD), the iconography was developing rapidly and the
basic compositional schemes were well established.
Even though the representations of holy figures and
holy events increased in number, they kept arousing suspicions of
traditionalists who inflexibly obeyed the Second Commandment and feared that any
deviation from it can lead to heresy or idol worship. Such fears were, at least
partially, justified. Not only the average uneducated believer, but often the
churchmen themselves could not understand how the three hypostases of God are
the One and only God, and how can the divine and human nature of Christ be
reconciled.
In 726 AD, the Emperor Leo III and a group of overzealous
"puritans," arguing that misinterpretation of religious images leads to heresy,
banned all pictorial representations and began a systematic destruction of holy
images, known as the period of iconoclasm. Referring to the decrees of
the Fourth Ecumenical Council in Chalcedon (451 AD) which defined that in
Christ the two natures, human and divine, are united without confusion and
without separation, the iconoclasts rejected the images of Christ because
for them they were simply material images which either confused or separated the
two natures of Christ. Such confusion or separation, in the iconoclasts'
opinion, was tantamount to the heresies of Nestorianism, Arianism or
Monophysitism.
To fight the iconoclasts, the iconodules (the defenders
or lovers of icons) had to find powerful spokesmen who would come up with
convincing formulations to prove that icons were not worshipped but venerated
and that such veneration was not idolatry. The iconodules based their defense of
icons on the Doctrine of the Incarnation and on the Dogma of the Two Natures of
Christ. St. John of Damascus (675-749) and St. Theodore of Studios (759-826)
wrote extensive treatises explaining the reasons for and the importance of icon
veneration.
St. John of Damascus argued that
"it is not divine beauty
which is given form and shape, but the human form which is rendered by the
painter's brush. Therefore, if the Son of God became man and appeared in man's
nature, why should his image not be made?"
The St. Theodoros of Studios defended the icons on the basis of the
ideas of identity and necessity:
"Man himself is created after the image and
likeness of God; therefore there is something divine in the art of making
images. . . As perfect man Christ not only can but must be represented and
worshipped in images: let this be denied and Christ's economy of the salvation
is virtually destroyed."
The iconoclasts, by rejecting all representations of
God, failed to take full account of the Incarnation. They fell into a kind of
dualism. Regarding matter as a defilement, they wanted a religion freed from all
contact with what is material, for they thought that what is spiritual must be
non-material. But if we allow no place to Christ's humanity, to his body, we
betray the Incarnation and we forget that our body and our soul must be saved
and transfigured. Thus, Iconoclasm was not only a controversy about religious
art, but about the Incarnation and the salvation of the entire material cosmos.
The Empress Irene suspended the iconoclastic persecutions in 780. Seven years
later the Seventh Ecumenical Council in Nicaea reaffirmed the veneration of
icons:
"We salute the form of the venerable and
life-giving Cross, and the holy relics of the Saints, and we receive, salute,
and kiss the holy and venerable icons. . . These holy and venerable icons we
honor and salute and honorably venerate namely, the icon of the Incarnation of
our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, and of our immaculate Lady and All-Holy
Theotokos, . . . also of the incorporeal Angels -- since they appeared to the
righteous in the form of men. Also the forms and icons of the divine and most
famed Apostles, of the Prophets, who speak of God, of the victorious Martyrs,
and of other saints; in order that by their paintings we may be enabled to
rise to the remembrance and memory of the prototypes, and may partake in some
measure of sanctification. . . To these icons should be given salutation and
honorable reverence, not indeed the true worship of faith, which pertains to
the divine nature alone. . . To these also shall be offered incense and
lights, in honor of them, according to the ancient pious custom. For the honor
which is paid to the icon passes on to that which the icon represents, and he
who reveres the icon reveres in it the person who is represented."
However, the attacks on the icons were renewed by Leo
the Armenian in 815 AD. Only in 843 AD, during the reign of the Empress
Theodora, the iconoclasts were defeated for good; the day of their defeat is
celebrated each year on the first Sunday after Lent as
Triumph of Orthodoxy.
After
the triumph of the icon lovers, iconography
developed at an unprecedented speed. By the end of the tenth century most
iconographic formulae had been firmly established and had been exported to other
Orthodox countries (Bulgaria, Serbia, and a little later,
Russia),
where they were further developed and elaborated by regional schools.
