Iconoclastic movement and civil wars
Iconoclast heresy was a dispute over the use of religious
images (icons) in the Byzantine Empire in the 8th and 9th centuries.
The Iconoclasts (those who rejected images) objected to icon worship
for several reasons, including the Old Testament prohibition against
images in the Ten Commandments (Ex. 20:4) and the possibility of
idolatry. The defenders of icon worship insisted on the symbolic
nature of images and on the dignity of created matter.
In the early church, the making and veneration of portraits of
Christ and the saints were consistently opposed. The use of icons,
nevertheless, steadily gained in popularity, especially in the eastern
provinces of the Roman Empire. Toward the end of the 6th century
and in the 7th, icons became the object of an officially encouraged
cult, often implying a superstitious belief in their animation.
Opposition to such practices became particularly strong in Asia
Minor. In 726 the Byzantine emperor Leo
III took a public stand against icons; in 730 their use was
officially prohibited. This opened a persecution of icon worshippers
that was severe in the reign of Leo's successor, Constantine
V (741-775).
In 787, however, the empress Irene convoked the seventh ecumenical
council at Nicaea at which Iconoclasm was condemned and the use
of images was reestablished. The Iconoclasts regained power in 814
after Leo
V's accession, and the use of icons was again forbidden at a
council (815). The second Iconoclast period ended with the death
of the emperor Theophilus
in 842.
In 843 his widow finally restored icon veneration, an event still
celebrated in the Eastern Orthodox Church as the Feast of Orthodoxy.
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