Excursus: Icons and Iconoclasm
From the earliest beginnings of the church, artwork of various biblical scenes began to adorn meeting places. During the fourth century, when Christian architecture became possible, buildings were adorned with paintings and mosaics of Jesus, the apostles, and biblical scenes. However, there was concern by some bishops that many people would slip into idolatry by looking at these images.
During the sixth century in the Eastern empire, the church and imperial government encouraged the making of icons. Where once the art most likely was used to remind Christians of their faith and its origins, the practice of not just appreciating the art but of actual venerating these icons spread. “Most ordinary Christians failed to distinguish between the holy object or holy person and the spiritual reality it stood for. They fell into idolatry.” (Shelly, p. 147) Justinian erected a huge statue of Jesus over the main gate of the imperial palace. “By the end of the sixth century, icons of Christ or Mary replaced the imperial icon in many situations. Eventually the icon of Christ appeared on the reverse side of coins. Early in the eighth century, however, Emperor Leo III (717-41) launched an attack on the use of icons.” (Shelly, p.148)
“After an apparently successful attempt to enforce the baptism of all Jews and Montanists in the empire (722), he issued a series of edicts against the worship of images (726–729). This prohibition…seems to have been inspired by a genuine desire to improve public morality, and received the support of the official aristocracy and a section of the clergy. A majority of the theologians and all the monks opposed these measures with uncompromising hostility, and in the western parts of the empire the people refused to obey the edict. A revolt which broke out in Greece, mainly on religious grounds, was crushed by the imperial fleet in 727. In 730, Patriarch Germanos I of Constantinople resigned rather than subscribe to an iconoclastic decree. Leo had him replaced by Anastasios, who willingly sided with the emperor on the question of icons. Thus Leo suppressed the overt opposition of the capital. In the Italian Peninsula the defiant attitude of Popes Gregory II and Gregory III on behalf of image-veneration led to a fierce quarrel with the emperor. The former summoned councils in Rome to anathematize and excommunicate the iconoclasts (730, 732); In AD 740 Leo retaliated by transferring Southern Italy and Illyricum from the papal diocese to that of the Patriarch of Constantinople. …The emperor died of dropsy in June 741.” (Wikipedia article, Leo III the Isaurian)
The supporters of icons were mostly monks and ascetics, as well as the uneducated and superstitious from the general populations who followed them. In fact, some monasteries made and sold icons for a living. (Shelly, p.148)
When Emperor Leo IV died in 780, Empress Irene of Athens became regent for her 10-year-old son, Constantine VI. As her son grew older and challenged his mother, Irene had him blinded and took on the title of Emperor. She was a strong advocate for icons so in 787 she arranged for a council of bishops from both Roman and Byzantine empires to meet in what is now known as the Seventh Ecumenical Council, or the Second Council of Nicea. (She was also a patron of monasteries and for these two reasons is considered a saint in the Orthodox Church.).
The outcome of this council was the restoration of the use of icons for worship and veneration: "As the sacred and life-giving cross is everywhere set up as a symbol, so also should the images of Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, the holy angels, as well as those of the saints and other pious and holy men be embodied in the manufacture of sacred vessels, tapestries, vestments, etc., and exhibited on the walls of churches, in the homes, and in all conspicuous places, by the roadside and everywhere, to be revered by all who might see them. For the more they are contemplated, the more they move to fervent memory of their prototypes. Therefore, it is proper to accord to them a fervent and reverent adoration, not, however, the veritable worship which, according to our faith, belongs to the Divine Being alone — for the honor accorded to the image passes over to its prototype, and whoever adores the image adores in it the reality of what is there represented. …
“The Orthodox Church came to believe that, in the iconoclasm controversy, the very essence of the Christian faith was at stake - not because of the images as such but because of the underlying principle of the Incarnation, the doctrine that the Son of God had actually become a visible man. The defeat of the iconoclasts came to be known, then, as ‘The Triumph of Orthodoxy’ and gave the Orthodox Church that certain enthusiastic confidence, even ebullience, that leaves it vulnerable, at times, to the charge of ‘triumphalism.’ It is an historical fact that the defeat of iconoclasm led almost immediately to a massive expansion of the Orthodox Church, especially in the great missions of 863 and 988...” (Patrick Henry Reardon, The History of Orthodox Christianity, p. 18)
Next time we will meet the invasion of Islam.
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