Iconoclastic Controversy

Background

Sacred images are paintings or sculptures depicting Christ, Mary, or the saints; in the Eastern Church they are called icons. The use of images in churches spread from around the fourth century. By the sixth and seventh centuries, venerating icons by kissing them and bowing before them had become a common devotional practice in the Byzantine Empire. Some critics, however, condemned this practice as idolatry that violated the commandment of the Ten Commandments forbidding the making of images (Exodus 20:4-5; Deuteronomy 5:6-10). In the early eighth century the empire suffered a series of defeats at the hands of Islamic forces, and it bordered the Islamic world, which prohibited images. These circumstances are often cited as background to the controversy, though scholars disagree about its precise causes.

Course of the Controversy

• First period: Emperor Leo III is reported to have begun a policy against images around 726 or 730. His son Constantine V convened the Council of Hieria in 754, which condemned both the making and the veneration of icons. The iconoclasts advanced a Christological argument: to depict Christ would amount either to dividing or to confusing his divine and human natures.
• Restoration of 787: The Second Council of Nicaea, held under Empress Irene, restored the veneration of icons. The council distinguished between worship (latreia), which is due to God alone, and the veneration (proskynesis) shown to icons. It further taught that the honor paid to an icon passes to the one whom the icon represents.
• Second period: In 815 Leo V again prohibited icons. This policy continued through the reign of Emperor Theophilos.
• Final restoration of 843: After the death of Theophilos, icon veneration was restored under Empress Theodora, who served as regent.

The leading theological defenders of icons were John of Damascus and Theodore the Studite. They argued that because the invisible God took on a visible body in the Incarnation, Christ can be depicted.

Outcome and Influence

The Eastern Orthodox Church commemorates the restoration of 843 each year on the first Sunday of Lent as the "Triumph of Orthodoxy." The Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church both accept the Second Council of Nicaea as the seventh ecumenical council. By contrast, the Frankish kingdom in the West is reported to have rejected its decisions at the Council of Frankfurt in 794; an inaccurate Latin translation is cited as one of the reasons. The controversy is regarded as having widened the distance between East and West and is cited as one of the factors behind the later East–West Schism.

The question of images resurfaced during the sixteenth-century Reformation. Reformed cities, including Zurich under the leadership of Huldrych Zwingli, removed images from their churches. John Calvin likewise opposed the use of images in worship. Martin Luther criticized the worship of images but opposed their violent removal. The Reformed tradition counts the prohibition of images as a separate second commandment, and the Heidelberg Catechism addresses the issue specifically. Today most Korean Protestant churches do not place images in their sanctuaries, using little more than the symbol of the cross.

Assessments

• Eastern Orthodox: Regards the controversy as a defense of the doctrine of the Incarnation.
• Catholic: Recognizes the veneration of images as a legitimate devotional practice while emphasizing the distinction between worship and veneration.
• Reformed Protestant: Tends to warn that the veneration of images risks sliding into idolatry; some in this tradition express partial sympathy with the concerns raised by the iconoclasts.
• Lutheran: Many hold that images may be used for instruction in the faith.

Modern historical scholarship also raises another issue. Most iconoclast writings have been lost, and the surviving record comes chiefly from the victorious defenders of icons. As a result, accounts of Leo III's motives and of the scale of the destruction of images may be exaggerated.