Explain the Role of Religious Icons in Byzantine Art
Artist, Unknown. "Byzantine Iconoclasm." Ancient History Encyclopedia.
(from εἰκονοκλάστης, "imagedestroyer"), a religious motility of the 8th and 9th C. that denied the holiness ofIconsand rejected icon veneration. Clerical opposition to the artistic delineation of sacred personages had its roots in late antiquity (Baynes,Byz. Studies 116–43, 226–39). In the 4th C.Eusebios of Caesarea, evidently cartoon on the christology ofOrigen, denied the possibility of artistically delineating Christ'south prototype (G. Florovsky,ChHist 19 [1950] 77–96). There was also an Iconoclast movement in 7th-C. Armenia (Alexander,History, pt. 7 [1955], 151–60). In the early 8th C. several bishops in Asia Minor, notably Constantine of Nakoleia and Thomas of Claudiopolis, condemned the veneration of images (G. Ostrogorsky inMél. Diehl 1:235–38), citing traditional biblical prohibitions against idolatry. Their views became a movement when Emp.Leo III began to support their position publicly in 726 (Anastos, "Leo Three's Edict" five–41). His social club to remove an icon of Christ from theChalke gate caused a riot. In 730 Leo summoned asilention that forced Patr.Germanos I to resign and issued an edict commanding the devastation of icons of the saints. Persecutions under Leo appear to have been limited to instances of destroying church decorations, portable icons, and chantry furnishings; at that place is no solid evidence of martyrdom.
The usurperArtabasdos temporarily restored icon veneration, butConstantine Five broadened the theological base of Iconoclasm past personally writing treatises and organizingsilentia. Constantine introduced an explicit christological attribute into Iconoclasm by asserting that a material depiction of Christ—who as God is uncircumscribable—threatened either to confuse or separate his 2 natures. In 754 Constantine summoned a council inHieria, which condemned icon veneration equally diabolical idolatry and insisted that theEucharist was the simply appropriate, nonanthropomorphic image of Christ. Constantine reportedly rejected worship ofRelics and attacked the cult ofEuphemia of Chalcedon, merely the 754 council affirmed the efficacy of the intercession of saints and denied merely the propriety of venerating them through textile depictions.
The acts of the 754 council were non strongly enforced until the 760s, when severalIconophiles were executed, includingStephen the Younger. Constantine rigorously persecuted Iconophiles in Constantinople, esp. monks;strategoi such every bitMichael Lachanodrakon extended this antimonastic campaign into the provinces. Yet exterior the capital Iconoclasm was irregularly supported and often restricted to redecorating churches with secular art. In the uppercase, according to the vita of Stephen the Younger, Constantine replaced pictures in the Church of the Virgin at Blachernai with "mosaics [representing] copse and all kinds of birds and beasts. …" Withal images of Christ and the saints remained in thesekreta of Hagia Sophia, Constantinople, until 768/ix, when Patr. Niketas I (766–80) had them removed (Nikeph. 76.21f). Iconoclasm waned afterwards Constantine'southward expiry: Leo 4 persecuted only a small group of officials in Constantinople in 780, and in 787 Constantine VI, Irene, and Patr.Tarasios secured an official condemnation of Iconoclasm at the Second Quango ofNicaea.
The emperors of theAmorian dynasty revived Iconoclasm, but it lacked the vigor of the 8th-C. movement. Leo Five deposed Patr.Nikephoros I and summoned a synod in 815 that renounced the restoration of icons and rehabilitated the Hieria council (P. Alexander,DOP 7 [1953] 35–66; idem,History, pt.Nine [1958], 493–505). Michael 2, although an Iconoclast, did not forcefulness the outcome. Theophilos, influenced byJohn VII Grammatikos, prohibited the product of icons and persecuted prominent Iconophiles, includingEuthymios of Sardis,Theodore Graptos, and the painterLazaros, but in 843, EmpressTheodora andTheoktistos engineered theTriumph of Orthodoxy. Although several church councils in the 860s and 870s condemned Iconoclasm again (F. Dvornik,DOP 7 [1953] 67–97), it was no longer a major issue.
While Byz. sources arraign external factors similar Jewish magicians and CaliphYazīd Ii for influencing Leo III and his supporters, modern scholarship offers various explanations for the development of Iconoclasm. Many specialists favor an ideological interpretation: Iconoclasm was the revival of aboriginal polemics against religious art (Alexander,Patr. Nicephorus 6–22), which harbored vestiges of paganism (Martin,Iconoclastic Controversy); Leo III was attempting to purify religious doctrine and practice because God was punishing the Byz. for idolatry past sending Arab attacks and natural disasters, such as an earthquake on Thera in 726 (C. Mango inIconoclasm 2f). Other scholars emphasize economic motives: the emperors used Iconoclasm to confiscate monastic and ecclesiastical property (G.Ja. Sjuzjumov,Učenye zapiski Sverdlovskogo gosudarstvennogo pedagogičeskogo instituta 4 [1948] 48–110). More than recently, scholars have stressed the function of imperial power: Iconoclasm was the climax ofCaesaropapism (G. Ladner,MedSt 2 [1940] 127–49); the reestablishment of the traditional imperial cult (Fifty. Barnard,Byzantion 43 [1973] 13–29); or the effort of emperors to establish their authority in ecclesiastical matters at a time when they were under pressure level to regenerate Byz. society and ward off its external enemies (J.F. Haldon,BS 38 [1977] 161–84). Another explanation considers Iconoclasm confronting the backdrop of the crunch of early on Byz.Cities: for the secular clergy, specially bishops, the potentially centrifugal nature of the cult of saints—physically localized and emotionally privatized past holy men, icons, relics, and monasteries—threatened their ability to retain a centralized ecclesiastical potency that could define the holy and shore upward the weakened structures of Byz. civic life (P. Chocolate-brown,EHR 88 [1973] 31f).
Economic and political factors played of import roles in the evolution of Iconoclasm, but the fundamental result of the controversy was the doctrine ofSalvation. By the 8th C. the Orthodox victory in the dispute over Christ's man and divine natures had affirmed the possibility of man'due south ascension to God, just without delimiting the instrumentality of conservancy or the position of the holy in Byz. society. Iconoclasts were genuinely concerned that increasing devotion to icons, past effacing the distinction between the material image and its spiritual image, was encouraging idolatry (East. Kitzinger,DOP viii [1954] 82–150) and thus blurring the crucial distinction between the sacred and the profane. The Iconoclasts accepted only the Eucharist, the church building, and the sign of the cross equally being fully holy, because only those objects had been consecrated by God directly or through a priest and were thus capable of bringing human beings in contact with the divine, whereas icons and relics were illegitimately consecrated from below by popular veneration (Chocolate-brown,supra).
The outcome of Iconoclasm was a partial victory for both sides. The Iconophiles, aided by thinkers such asJohn of Damascus, won the theological battle by formulating a theory of images that regardedIcons as efficacious vehicles of the holy and having information technology formally endorsed as Orthodoxy. However the Iconophiles owed their triumph to sympathetic emperors, whose authority over church diplomacy was thereby strengthened. In particular, imperial jurisdiction over monasteries was established: strong, centralized monasteries (seeStoudios) were undermined and increasingly replaced past smaller, less cenobitic monasteries under state patronage and control. Moreover, religious dissidents (seeTheodore of Stoudios) failed in appeals to Rome to counter imperial efforts to dictate religious policy. The flight of many active monastic Iconophiles to the West permitted conformists similarPhotios andEuthymios to hold the patriarchate. Amid other consequences, the Iconoclasts' reliance on nonrepresentational religious art contributed to the exaltation of the cult of theCross (J. Moorhead,Byzantion 55 [1985] 165–79), while in the West imperial back up for Iconoclasm provoked denunciations from popesGregory II andGregory 3 and pushed the papacy farther toward dependence on the Franks (see tooLibri carolini).
Hollingsworth, Paul A., and Anthony Cutler. "Iconoclasm." In The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium . : Oxford University Press, 1991.
Source: https://libguides.ku.edu.tr/byzantine_art_and_architecture/icons-iconoclasm
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