In our time, we often refer to celebrities as cultural icons, pop icons, and fashion icons. Rebels are sometimes labeled iconoclasts. Icons are also the little images that populate the screens of our computers, phones, and tablets, which we click to open files and apps.
The word “icon” comes from the Greek eikо̄n, so, “icon” simply means image. In the Eastern Roman “Byzantine” Empire and other lands that shared Byzantium’s Orthodox Christian faith, “holy icons” were images of sacred figures and events.
Icon of Christ, late 14th century, Thessaloniki, egg tempera on wood, 157 x 105 x 5 cm (Museum of Byzantine Culture, Thessaloniki)
When art historians talk about icons today, they often mean portraits of holy figures painted on wood panels with encaustic or egg tempera, like this tempera icon of Christ from fourteenth-century Thessaloniki. But the Byzantines used the term icon more broadly, as this statement made by Church authorities in 787 C.E. shows:
Holy icons—made of colors, pebbles, or any other material that is fit—may be set in the holy churches of God, on holy utensils and vestments, on walls and boards, in houses and in streets. These may be icons of our Lord and God the Savior Jesus Christ, or of our pure Lady the holy Theotokos, or of honorable angels, or of any saint or holy man.(Council of Nicaea II, 787 C.E.)
The Byzantines created icons in virtually every available medium. Left to right: heliotrope (bloodstone) cameo icon of Christ, 10th century, Byzantine (The British Museum); ivory icon with the Koimesis (Dormition of the Virgin), late 10th century, Constantinople (The Metropolitan Museum of Art); miniature mosaic icon of the Virgin and Child, early 14th century, Constantinople (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
In Byzantium, icons were painted, but they were also carved in stone and ivory and fashioned from mosaics, metals, and enamels—virtually any medium available to artists.
Icons could be monumental or miniature. They were located in a variety of religious and non-religious settings, including as decoration on functional objects like this Eucharistic chalice.
And icons could depict a wide range of sacred subjects, such as Christ, the saints, and events from the Bible or the lives of saints.
Mosaic icon of Christ above the entrance to the 11th-century church at Hosios Loukas Monastery, Boeotia, Greece (photo: Evan Freeman, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Christians initially disagreed over whether religious images were good or bad. Texts from as early as the second and third century describe some Christians using religious images, which they illuminated and adorned with garlands, but these practices were not universal or standardized. Church authorities often criticized these practices, which reminded them of customs associated with pagan Greece and Rome, where images of gods and emperors were widely venerated.
Iconoclasts whitewashing an icon of Christ, miniature in the Theodore Psalter (Add MS 19352, fol. 27v), 1066, Constantinople (The British Library)
By the eighth and ninth centuries, icons were increasingly popular, and arguments about religious images boiled over in what is called the “Iconoclastic Controversy.” The so-called “iconoclasts” (literally, “breakers of images”) opposed icons, arguing that God was transcendent and could not be depicted in art. The iconoclasts feared that Christians praying before icons were worshipping inanimate objects.
On the other hand, the “iconophiles” (literally “lovers of images”), also known as “iconodules” (literally “servants of images”), defended icons, arguing that since Jesus, the Son of God, was born with a visible human body, he could be depicted in images. The iconophiles maintained that rather than worshipping inanimate objects, they honored icons as a means of honoring the holy figures represented in icons.
Imperial and Church authorities in favor of icons gathered at a council in the city of Nicaea in 787 to try to resolve the controversy, but it was not until 843 that the Church definitively affirmed the use of images, ending the Iconoclastic Controversy in what became known as the “Triumph of Orthodoxy.” To this day, icons continue to play important roles in the faith and worship of the Eastern Orthodox Church, which is heir to the religious tradition of Byzantium.
Imperial and church authorities affirm the use of images in this Icon of the Triumph of Orthodoxy, c. 1400, Constantinople, tempera on wood, 39 x 31 x 5.3 cm (The British Museum)
In addition to affirming Christian images, the 787 Council of Nicaea II and subsequent 843 Triumph of Orthodoxy also enshrined devotional practices associated with icons. Christians should bow before and kiss icons, light candles and lamps, and burn incense before them. All of these acts of devotion directed at images were intended to pass to the holy figures represented. As a modern analogy, we might consider the ways many people frame and hang photos of loved ones in their homes, sometimes even embracing or kissing such images.
Reading icons
Today, many people identify art with creativity and self-expression. But this was not always the case. Icons were meant to represent historical figures and Christian teaching in a manner that was recognizable and understandable for viewers. Since icons were venerated as a way of showing devotion to the figure represented, understanding who was depicted was particularly important. To achieve this, artists often relied on established artistic conventions.
Peter and Paul appear much the same through the centuries. Left: glass bowl base, 4th century, Roman (The Metropolitan Museum of Art); center: mosaics, 11th century, Hosios Loukas Monastery, Greece; right: panel icon, 17th century, Greek (Temple Gallery).
For example, Saints Peter and Paul appear much the same through the centuries: Peter is an old man with white wavy hair and a short beard; Paul has balding, brown hair and a pointy beard. Modern viewers may dismiss such repetition as unoriginal. But for viewers familiar with these conventions, the figures in icons were immediately recognizable, like seeing the faces of old friends.
Artists also used what art historians call “iconographic attributes” to identify figures. For example, evangelists (authors of the Gospels) often hold Gospel books. Clergy saints wear church vestments and hold liturgical objects, such as censers, which were used by the clergy in church services. Healer saints hold boxes of medicine. Martyrs—saints who had died for their faith—often hold crosses to associate their sacrifice with the death of Christ on the cross.
These attributes helped identify the holy figures represented. But there were no rulebooks governing these conventions, so iconographic attributes were subject to change. It was only in the post-Iconoclastic period, for example, that artists regularly depicted soldier saints in military garb, as seen in this tenth- or eleventh-century ivory icon of Saint Demetrios.
Another way of guaranteeing that viewers recognized the figures in icons was by including texts that labeled the icon’s subjects. Although labels were sporadic before Iconoclasm, they became normative in the post-Iconoclastic era. So, icons of Christ are labeled “IC XC” (the Greek abbreviation for “Jesus Christ”). Icons of the Virgin Mary are labeled “MP ΘY” (the Greek abbreviation for “Mother of God”). And icons of most other holy figures are labeled ὁ ἅγιος (o agios, meaning “saint,” or more literally, “holy”), sometimes abbreviated with as an “Α” within an “Ο” as seen in this this tenth- or eleventh-century ivory icon of Saint Demetrios.
Icon of Christ Pantokrator, late 14th century, Thessaloniki, egg tempera on wood, 157 x 105 x 5 cm (Museum of Byzantine Culture, Thessaloniki)
Consider how these elements work together in this late-fourteenth-century icon of Christ. Christ appears with his conventional long brown hair and beard. Iconographic attributes describe him further: The artist has sought to portray Christ in clothing from the ancient era in which he lived; Christ holds a Gospel book displaying his own words from Matthew 6:14–15; and there is a cross in Christ’s halo because he was crucified to save the world. Finally, the text identifies this as “Jesus Christ,” and also includes a more particular title: “the Wisdom of God.” Together, all these elements enabled Byzantine viewers to recognize the figure who gazed out and blessed them.
Variety and creativity
But while the use of artistic conventions, attributes, and inscriptions made icons recognizable through the centuries, it would be wrong to suggest that all icons were the same. Icons varied based on the scale and medium in which they were depicted, as well as across periods and regions, where they were often the product of local materials, workshops, and tastes.
Artists also regularly experimented with new compositions. Depictions of the Virgin and child, among the most popular subjects of Byzantine icons, took numerous forms through the centuries.
An early example of the Anastasis appears on this reliquary (container for relics) (left), located on the bottom right corner of the inside of the lid (right). The Fieschi Morgan Staurotheke, early 9th century, Constantinople(?), gilded silver, gold, enamel worked in cloisonné, and niello, 2.7 x 10.3 x 7.1 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art). (view annotated image)
Sometimes, artists invented new images that were widely imitated. The Anastasis (Greek for “Resurrection”), which depicted Christ descending into Hades (the underworld) to raise the dead from their tombs, first appeared in the eighth century and has remained a common image in Orthodox churches to this day.
But another example, the unique tenth-century ivory Crucifixion at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which drew imagery from church hymnography to show Christ’s cross impaling a personification of Hades, was apparently one of a kind. No comparable images survive.
Icon with the Crucifixion, mid-10th century, probably made in Constantinople, ivory, 15.1 × 8.9 × 0.8 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Functions of icons
Icons had a wide range of functions in Byzantium. Their readability enabled them to illustrate Biblical texts, hagiographies, and theological ideas. It was a truism in the middle ages that images functioned as “books for the illiterate.” Before the age of the printing press and inexpensive books, few people owned books, and many could not read. While biblical passages were read aloud in church services, icons offered visual depictions of biblical events that all could see whenever they entered a church.
Miniature depicting monks praying with icons in a church, in codex containing the Heavenly Ladder of John Climacus (Sinai cod. 418, fol. 269), 12th century (The Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine, Sinai, Egypt).
Icons also served as a focus for prayer and devotion, both in church services and in private settings. The frontality of portrait icons facilitated face-to-face encounters between holy figures and worshippers who wished to address the holy figures in prayer. The eleventh-century Theodore Psalter anachronistically imagines such an encounter between King David (from the Hebrew Bible) and a Byzantine icon of Christ.
King David praying before an icon of Christ, miniature in the Theodore Psalter (Add MS 19352, fol. 15v), 1066, Constantinople (The British Library)
In many instances, the saints were believed to work miracles through their icons. Numerous Byzantine texts describe the figures in icons coming alive to defend or heal people. Icons could even be worn as jewelry, and inscriptions suggest that their wearers hoped these wearable icons would protect or heal them.
Fresco depicting the emperor and church officials in a procession with an icon of the Virgin and Child, c. 1380, Markov Manastir, North Macedonia (photo: byzantologist, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Solidus of Justinian II showing Christ on one side (left) and the emperor on the other side (right), 692–95, Constantinople, gold, 4.43 g, 2cm (Yale University Art Gallery)
And in a culture with no notion of separation of church and state, icons frequently blurred the boundaries between religious and political imagery. Icons were carried in public processions, processed around city walls in times of distress, and even carried into battle. A fourteenth-century fresco at Markov Manastir in North Macedonia depicts both the Byzantine emperor and Church officials in procession with an icon of the Virgin and Child. In Hagia Sophia, the great cathedral of the Byzantine capital, mosaics depicted haloed emperors and empresses within the same frame as Christ and the Virgin. Icons of Christ even appeared on Byzantine coins during the reign of Justinian II around the turn of the eighth century, where God and emperor were literally on two sides of the same coin.
Mosaic of Christ (center) with emperor Constantine IX (left) and empress Zoe (right), 1042–1055, Hagia Sophia, Constantinople (Istanbul) (photo: byzantologist, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Adorning icons
Increasingly in the Late Byzantine periods, wealthy patrons affixed thin pieces of precious metal, or “revetments,” to icons as a way to honor the holy figures depicted. These metallic adornments often included ornamental motifs, additional icons, and sometimes even images of the patrons and poetic inscriptions known as epigrams, which recorded the donor’s prayers.
Icon of the Virgin and Child, silver revetment: late 13th–early 14th century, Constantinople, tempera painting: 15th century, Moscow (Tretyakov Gallery, photo: byzantologist, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
An icon in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow preserves silver revetment from thirteenth- or fourteenth-century Constantinople, although a later, fifteenth-century painting has replaced the original, which was likely lost or damaged. This revetment covers much of the wooden surface with a swirling filigree pattern, and smaller icons of various saints populate the icon’s frame. Two full-length portraits of the Byzantine donors appear in the lower corners of the frame.
Triptych with the Mandylion, 1637, Moscow, Silver, partly gilt, niello, enamel, sapphires, rubies, spinels, pearls, leather, silk velvet, oil paint, gesso, linen, mica, pig-skin, woods: Tilia cordata (basswood or linden), white oak, 68.6 x 90.8 x 12.7 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
After the fall of Byzantium to the Ottomans in 1453, the tradition of affixing precious materials to icons endured in places like Russia, where the icon cover was referred to as an oklad or riza. Russian oklads were often elaborate, covering the entire icon except for the face and hands of the holy figures represented, as seen with a seventeenth-century icon depicting the face of Christ at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The modern “discovery” of icons
Use and the passage of time often left icons worn out or damaged. Icon varnish tended to darken with age, obscuring the icon’s image. In an age when modern restoration techniques did not yet exist, artists often painted directly over the darkened images so that an icon could be seen and used once again.
Left: 1904 photograph of Rublev’s Trinity before restorations showing the oklad and later overpainting; right: current state of Rublev’s, Trinity, c. 1410 or 1425–27, tempera on wood 142 x 114 cm (Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow; photos: Wikipedia)
Detail showing the scarred surface of Andrei Rublev’s Trinity, c. 1410, tempera on wood 142 x 114 cm (photo: byzantologist, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
But at the turn of the twentieth century, new restoration techniques enabled conservators to uncover the original layers of many old, overpainted icons. In Russia, countless icons were stripped of oklads, darkened varnish, and layers of overpainting to reveal their original images. Such was the case with the fifteenth-century icon of the Trinity attributed to Andrew Rublev, restored in 1904 and again in 1918. While the restoration of Rublev’s Trinity revealed the brilliant colors and balanced composition of the original image, it also erased the many acts of devotion and overpainting that occurred through centuries, to which nail holes across the scarred surface of the image still attest. Walking through museums in Russia, one finds that many icons bear similar nail holes that once affixed oklads to the icons’ surfaces.
Many of Russia’s newly-restored icons were transferred from churches and exhibited in museums, which drastically changed the circumstances of their viewing. Such newly cleaned icons offered art historians valuable insights about the past and inspired modern artists in the present. After viewing an exhibition with icons in Russia in 1911, Henri Matisse famously commented: “French artists should come to study in Russia: Italy offers less in this field.”
Viewing icons then and now
Both the restoration of icons and their subsequent interpretation in the twentieth century were strongly influenced by modern tastes and theories of art. Today, the earliest painted image is prized, while the oklad is often dismissed as an ornamental addition that is foreign to the nature of the painted icon. Drawing parallels with modern art, art historians and critics like Clement Greenberg described icons as non-naturalistic, and many art historians have interpreted this aspect of icons as symbolizing spirituality and the figures in icons as distant from viewers.
More recently though, art historians have noted that the Byzantines consistently described the sacred figures in icons as accurate and lifelike.
Apse mosaic depicting the Virgin and Child, dedicated 867, Hagia Sophia, Constantinople (Istanbul) (photo: byzantologist, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Preaching in 867 about a new mosaic installed in the apse of Hagia Sophia following the Triumph of Orthodoxy over Iconoclasm, patriarch Photios, the leader of the Byzantine Church, stated:
With such exactitude has the art of painting, which is a reflection of inspiration from above, set up a lifelike imitation…You might think her not incapable of speaking, even if one were to ask her, “How didst thou give birth and remainest a virgin?” To such an extent have the lips been made flesh by the colors…Photios, Homily 17
Such texts remind us that the ways we view artworks are often highly contingent on our own cultural contexts.
Preserved in a desert monastery, this wax-on-wood icon leads the viewer upward and inward to the spiritual realm.
Icon with the Virgin and Child, Saints, Angels, and the Hand of God, 6th century (Early Byzantine), encaustic on panel, 68.5 x 49.5 cm (The Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine, Sinai, Egypt). Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker with support from the Byzantine Studies Association of North America, Inc. and the Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art & Culture
Virgin (Theotokos) and Child between Saints Theodore and George, 6th or early 7th century, encaustic on wood, 68.5 x 49.5 cm (Saint Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai, Egypt; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
At Mount Sinai Monastery
One of thousands of important Byzantine images, books, and documents preserved at Saint Catherine’s Monastery, Mount Sinai (Egypt) is the remarkable encaustic icon painting of the Virgin (Theotokos) and Child between Saints Theodore and George.
Virgin (Theotokos) and Child between Saints Theodore and George, 6th or early 7th century, encaustic on wood, 68.5 x 49.5 cm (Saint Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai, Egypt; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
The icon shows the Virgin and Child flanked by two soldier saints, Saint Theodore to the left and Saint George at the right. Above these are two angels who gaze upward to the hand of God, from which light emanates, falling on the Virgin.
Virgin and child bottom middle, Saint Theodore (left) and Saint George (right), and two angels in the back, Virgin (Theotokos) and Child between Saints Theodore and George, 6th or early 7th century, encaustic on wood, 68.5 x 49.5 cm (Saint Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai, Egypt; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Selectively classicizing
The painter selectively used the classicizing style inherited from Rome. The faces are modeled; we see the same convincing modeling in the heads of the angels (note the muscles of the necks) and the ease with which the heads turn almost three-quarters.
The space appears compressed, almost flat, at our first encounter. Yet we find spatial recession, first in the throne of the Virgin where we glimpse part of the right side and a shadow cast by the throne; we also see a receding armrest as well as a projecting footrest. The Virgin, with a slight twist of her body, sits comfortably on the throne, leaning her body left toward the edge of the throne. The child sits on her ample lap as the mother supports him with both hands. We see the left knee of the Virgin beneath convincing drapery whose folds fall between her legs.
Hand of God (detail), Virgin (Theotokos) and Child between Saints Theodore and George, 6th or early 7th century, encaustic on wood, 68.5 x 49.5 cm (Saint Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai, Egypt; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
At the top of the painting an architectural member turns and recedes at the heads of the angels. The architecture helps to create and close off the space around the holy scene.
The composition displays a spatial ambiguity that places the scene in a world that operates differently from our world, reminiscent of the spatial ambiguity of the earlier Ivory panel with Archangel. The ambiguity allows the scene to partake of the viewer’s world but also separates the scene from the normal world.
Virgin (center), Saints Theodore and George (left and right), Virgin (Theotokos) and Child between Saints Theodore and George, 6th or early 7th century, encaustic on wood, 68.5 x 49.5 cm (Saint Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai, Egypt; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
New in our icon is what we might call a “hierarchy of bodies.” Theodore and George stand erect, feet on the ground, and gaze directly at the viewer with large, passive eyes. While looking at us they show no recognition of the viewer and appear ready to receive something from us. The saints are slightly animated by the lifting of a heel by each as though they slowly step toward us.
The Virgin averts her gaze and does not make eye contact with the viewer. The ethereal angels concentrate on the hand above. The light tones of the angels and especially the slightly transparent rendering of their halos give the two an otherworldly appearance.
Visual movement upward, toward the hand of God
This supremely composed picture gives us an unmistakable sense of visual movement inward and upward, from the saints to the Virgin and from the Virgin upward past the angels to the hand of God. The passive saints seem to stand ready to receive the veneration of the viewer and pass it inward and upward until it reaches the most sacred realm depicted in the picture.
We can describe the differing appearances as saints who seem to inhabit a world close to our own (they alone have a ground line), the Virgin and Child who are elevated and look beyond us, and the angels who reside near the hand of God transcend our space. As the eye moves upward we pass through zones: the saints, standing on ground and therefore closest to us, and then upward and more ethereal until we reach the holiest zone, that of the hand of God. These zones of holiness suggest a cosmos of the world, earth and real people, through the Virgin, heavenly angels, and finally the hand of God. The viewer who stands before the scene make this cosmos complete, from “our earth” to heaven.
The “Iconoclastic Controversy” over religious images was a defining moment in the history of the Eastern Roman “Byzantine” Empire. Centered in Byzantium’s capital of Constantinople (modern Istanbul) from the 700s–843, imperial and Church authorities debated whether religious images should be used in Christian worship or banned. Who were the players and what was this Controversy all about?
Icons (Greek for “images”) refers to the religious images of Byzantium, made from a variety of media, which depict holy figures and events.
Iconoclasm refers to any destruction of images, including the Byzantine Iconoclastic Controversy of the eighth and ninth centuries, although the Byzantines themselves did not use this term.
Iconomachy (Greek for “image struggle”) was the term the Byzantines used to describe the Iconoclastic Controversy.
Iconoclasts (Greek for “breakers of images”) refers to those who opposed icons.
Iconophiles (Greek for “lovers of images”), also known as “iconodules” (Greek for “servants of images”), refers to those who supported the use of religious images.
What was the big deal?
Debating for over a century whether religious images should or should not be allowed may puzzle us today. But in Byzantium, religious images were bound up in religious belief and practice. In a society with no concept of separation of church and state, religious orthodoxy (right belief) was believed to impact not only the salvation of individual souls, but also the fate of the entire Empire. Viewed from this perspective, it is possible to understand how debates over images could entangle both Church leaders and emperors.
The arguments
The iconophiles and iconoclasts developed sophisticated theological and philosophical arguments to argue for and against religious images. Here is a quick summary of some of their main points:
The iconoclasts noted that the Bible often prohibited images, notably in the Second Commandment (one of the Ten Commandments appearing in the Hebrew Bible):
You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them….(Exodus 20:4–5, NRSV)
The iconophiles countered that while the Bible prohibited images in some passages, God also mandated the creation of images in other instances, for example God commanded that cherubim should adorn the Ark of the Covenant: “You shall make two cherubim of gold; you shall make them of hammered work, at the two ends of the mercy seat.” (Exodus 25:18, NRSV).
The iconoclasts argued that God was invisible and infinite, and therefore beyond human ability to depict in images. Since Jesus was both human and divine, the iconoclasts argued that artists could not depict him in images. The iconophiles agreed that God could not be represented in images but argued that when Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was born as a human being with a physical body, he allowed himself to be seen and depicted. Since some icons were believed to date to the time of Christ, icons were understood to offer a kind of proof that the Son of God entered the world as a human being, died on the cross, rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven—all for the salvation of humankind.
The iconoclasts also objected to practices of honoring icons with candles and incense, and by bowing before and kissing them, in which worshippers seemed to worship created matter (the icon itself) rather than the creator. But the iconophiles asserted that when Christians honored images of Christ and the saints like this, they did not worship the artwork as such, but honored the holy person represented in the image.
Timeline of events
Early centuries
Sporadic evidence of Christians creating religious images and honoring them with candles and garlands emerges from as early as the second century C.E. Church leaders often condemned such images and devotional practices, which seemed too similar to the pagan religions that Christians rejected.
The Byzantine Empire faced invasions from Persians and Arabs in the seventh century, resulting in significant loss of territory. Trade decreased and the empire experienced an economic downturn. Byzantine anxieties over images likely emerge, at least in part, as a result of these devastating events (which may have been perceived as signs of God’s displeasure with icons).
Through the centuries, icons became increasingly widespread in Byzantium. By the late seventh century, the Church began to legislate on images. Church leaders at the Quinisext Council (also known as the Council of Trullo) held in Constantinople in 691–692 prohibited the depiction of crosses on floors where they could be walked on, which was understood as disrespectful. They also mandated that Christ be depicted as a human rather than symbolically as a lamb in order to affirm Christ’s incarnation and saving works. Around this same time, emperor Justinian II incorporated icons of Christ onto his coins. These events suggest the growing importance of religious images in the Byzantine Empire at this time.
Solidus of Justinian II showing Christ on one side (left) and the emperor on the other side (right), 692–95, Constantinople, gold, 4.43 g, 2cm (photo: Yale University Art Gallery, CC0)
The first phase of Iconoclasm: 720s–787
Historical texts suggest the struggle over images began in the 720s. According to traditional accounts, Iconoclasm was prompted by emperor Leo III removing an icon of Christ from the Chalke Gate of the imperial palace in Constantinople in 726 or 730, sparking a widespread destruction of images and a persecution of those who defended images. But more recently, scholars have noted a lack of evidence supporting this traditional narrative, and believe that iconophiles probably exaggerated the offenses of the iconoclasts for rhetorical effect after the Controversy.
Historical evidence firmly identifies Leo’s son, emperor Constantine V, as an iconoclast. Constantine publicly argued against icons and convened a Church council that rejected religious images at the palace in the Constantinople suburb of Hieria in 754. Probably as a result of this council, iconoclasts replaced images of saints with crosses in the sekreton (audience hall) between the patriarchal palace and Constantinople’s great cathedral, Hagia Sophia, in the 760s (discussed further below).
787 Iconophile Council of Nicaea II
In 787, the empress Irene convened a pro-image Church council, which negated the Iconoclast council held in Hieria in 754 and affirmed the use of religious images. The council drew on the pro-image writings of a Syrian monk, Saint John of Damascus, who lived c. 675–749.
The second phase of Iconoclasm: 815–843
Emperor Leo V, who reigned from 813–820, banned images once again in 815, beginning what is often referred to as a second phase of Byzantine Iconoclasm. Leo V’s ban on images followed significant Byzantine military losses to the Bulgars in Macedonia and Thrace, which Leo may have viewed as a sign of God’s displeasure with icons. Theodore, abbot of the Stoudios Monastery in Constantinople, wrote in defense of icons during this time. Evidence suggests this second phase of Iconoclasm was more mild than the first.
Icon of the Triumph of Orthodoxy, c. 1400, Constantinople, tempera on wood, 39 x 31 x 5.3 cm (The British Museum)
The Triumph of Orthodoxy
The iconoclastic emperor Theophilos died in 842. His son, Michael III, was too young to rule alone, so empress Theodora (Michael III’s mother), and the eunuch Theoktistos (an official), ruled as regents until Michael III came of age. Later sources describe Theodora as a secret iconophile during her husband’s iconoclastic reign, although there is a lack of evidence to support this. For reasons not entirely clear, Theodora and Theoktistos installed the iconophile patriarch Methodios I and once again affirmed religious images in 843, definitively ending Byzantine Iconoclasm.
Imperial and Church leaders marked this restoration of images with a triumphant procession through the city of Constantinople, culminating with a celebration of the Divine Liturgy in Hagia Sophia. The Church acclaimed the restoration of images as the “Triumph of Orthodoxy,” which continues to be commemorated annually on the first Sunday of Lent in the Eastern Orthodox Church to this day.
Iconoclasm and the Triumph of Orthodoxy in Byzantine Mosaics
The Byzantine Iconoclastic Controversy was not merely an intellectual debate, but was also an inflection point in the history of Byzantine art itself. Let us consider the examples of three Byzantine churches, whose mosaics offer visual evidence of the Iconoclastic Controversy and subsequent Triumph of Orthodoxy: Hagia Eirene in Constantinople (Istanbul), the Dormition in Nicaea (İznik, Turkey), and Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (Istanbul).
Hagia Eirene, begun 532, rebuilt following an earthquake in 740, Constantinople (Istanbul) (photo: Alexxx1979, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Hagia Eirene in Constantinople
Hagia Eirene, begun 532, rebuilt following an earthquake in 740, Constantinople (Istanbul) (photo: Gryffindor, CC0)
The emperor Justinian constructed the church of Hagia Eirene in Constantinople (Istanbul) in the sixth century, but the church’s dome was not well supported, and the building was badly damaged by an earthquake in 740. Emperor Constantine V, who reigned from 741–775, rebuilt Hagia Eirene in the mid to late 750s.
Constantine V—who, as an iconoclast, opposed pictorial depictions of Christ and the saints—is credited with decorating the apse of the church with a cross, which the iconoclasts found acceptable. The cross mosaic makes liberal use of costly materials, such as gold and silver. The skilled artists who created the mosaic bent the arms of the cross downward to compensate for the curve of the dome so that the crossarm would appear straight to viewers standing on the floor of the church.
Apse mosaic with cross, Hagia Eirene, rebuilt after 740, Constantinople (Istanbul) (photo: byzantologist, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Clearly, while the iconoclasts opposed certain types of religious imagery, they did not reject art entirely, and were sometimes important patrons of art and architecture, as was Constantine V. There is also evidence that emperor Theophilos—who reigned during the second phase of Iconoclasm—expanded and lavishly decorated the imperial palace and other spaces.
The church of the Dormition in Nicaea
Iconoclastic activity can be directly observed in the mosaics of the church of the Dormition (or Koimesis) at Nicaea (İznik, Turkey). Although the church does not survive today, photographs from 1912 clearly show seams, or sutures, where parts of the mosaics were removed and replaced during the Byzantine era.
Although the precise history of the mosaics at Nicaea is difficult to reconstruct, the 1912 photographs clearly indicate three distinct phases of creation and subsequent restorations during and after the Iconoclastic era.
1912 photograph shows multiple phases in the apse mosaic at the church of the Dormition (now destroyed), Nicaea (İznik, Turkey)
(photo: N. K. Kluge)
Phase 1 (yellow) The original mosaics predate Iconoclasm and were probably created in the late seventh or early eighth century. They pictured the Virgin and Child standing on a jeweled footstool in the apse. An inscription refers to the church’s founder, whose name was Hyakinthos.
Phase 2 (red) Sometime during the Iconoclastic Controversy of the eighth and ninth centuries, the image of the Virgin and Child was removed and replaced with a plain cross like the one in Hagia Eirene in Constantinople, whose outlines can still be partially observed in the 1912 photograph.
Phase 3 (purple) Sometime after the Triumph of Orthodoxy in 843, the cross was replaced with another image of the Virgin and Child.
Plan of Hagia Sophia showing apse mosaic and sekreton mosaics
The only surviving evidence of destruction of images in the Byzantine capital survives at Hagia Sophia, in audience halls (sekreta) that connected the southwestern corner of the church at the gallery level with the patriarchal palace. Primary sources speak of patriarch Niketas—the highest-ranking Church official in Constantinople—removing mosaics of Christ and the saints from the small sekreton sometime between 766–769.
And as at the church of the Dormition in Nicaea, scars are visible in the mosaics in the small sekreton. Roundels with crosses, which survive today, likely once contained portraits of saints, which patriarch Niketas is said to have removed. Beneath the roundels, the ghostly remnants of erased inscriptions indicate where the missing saints’ names once appeared.
Following the Triumph of Orthodoxy, the Byzantines installed a new mosaic of the Virgin and Child in the apse of Constantinople’s Hagia Sophia. The image was accompanied by an inscription (now partially destroyed), which framed the image as a response to Iconoclasm: “The images which the imposters [i.e. the iconoclasts] had cast down here pious emperors have again set up.” Yet unlike at Nicaea, there is no evidence of the apse’s previous decoration or of any interventions by iconoclasts. So while the inscription implies that iconoclasts removed a figural image from this position, this ninth-century Virgin and Child mosaic installed after the Triumph of Orthodoxy may be the first such figural image to occupy this position in Hagia Sophia.
Apse mosaic depicting the Virgin and Child, dedicated 867, Hagia Sophia, Constantinople (Istanbul) (photo: byzantologist, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
In 867, patriarch Photios, the highest-ranking Church official in Constantinople, preached a homily in Hagia Sophia on the dedication of the new mosaic. Photios condemned the iconoclasts for “Stripping the Church, Christ’s bride, of her own ornaments [i.e. images], and wantonly inflicting bitter wounds on her, wherewith her face was scarred. . . .” He went on to speak of the restoration of images:
[The Church] now regains the ancient dignity of her comeliness. . . . If one called this day the beginning and day of Orthodoxy . . . one would not be far wrong.Photios, Homily 17, 3
The mosaic in Hagia Sophia and the homily by Photios both illustrate how the iconophiles—the victors of the Iconoclastic Controversy—framed their victory as a triumph of religious orthodoxy, perhaps exaggerating the offenses of the iconoclasts along the way for rhetorical effect.
Robin Cormack and Ernest J. W. Hawkins, “The Mosaics of St. Sophia at Istanbul: The Rooms above the Southwest Vestibule and Ramp,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 31 (1977): 175–251.
Paul A. Underwood, “The Evidence of Restorations in the Sanctuary Mosaics of the Church of the Dormition at Nicaea,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 13 (1959): 235–243.
Cite this page as: Dr. Evan Freeman, “Byzantine Iconoclasm and the Triumph of Orthodoxy,” in Smarthistory, January 11, 2021, accessed May 14, 2024, https://smarthistory.org/byzantine-iconoclasm/.
Khludov Psalter (detail), 9th century. The image represents the Iconoclast theologian, John the Grammarian, and an iconoclast bishop destroying an image of Christ. (State Historical Museum, Moscow)
The “Transitional Period” of Byzantine history, corresponding to the Iconoclast controversy (a dispute over the use of religious images, or “icons,” in the eighth and ninth centuries), incursions by the Arabs, and an economic downturn, was not conducive to architectural production and, it seems, less conducive to the documentation of building activity. The period nevertheless accounts for dramatic and permanent changes in Byzantine religious architecture in both form and scale.
The lack of secure criteria for dating the surviving buildings has long plagued Byzantine scholarship. An earlier generation of scholars familiar with the architectural program of emperor Basil I from the Vita Basilii, viewed his reign as a formative period and consequently dated a variety of “transitional” churches in Constantinople (the capital of the Byzantine Empire) to the ninth century. None of buildings mentioned in the Vita survives, however, nor any other of the great monuments of ninth-century Constantinople. The palaces of Theophilos have similarly vanished without a trace, and only paltry foundations remain for the well-documented monasteries on the Princes’ Islands.
This period of economic downturn and loss of territory led to a decrease in pan-Mediterranean trade, a reduction in the size of cities, and a social and economic shift from urban to rural. Public ceremonies, which often incorporated the emperor and church officials—a hallmark of previous centuries—also declined, and the Byzantine liturgy became more interior, with fewer outdoor processions. Churches became smaller and more centralized, accommodating smaller congregations and a more static liturgy. In general, the decrease in the scale of church construction led to the development of new, simpler architectural designs.
As we might expect, given the importance of Hagia Sophia, domed churches predominate—following a simplified version of the grand developments of the age of Justinian. As a domed basilica, the sixth-century H. Sophia Constantinople had a dome diameter of 100 Byzantine feet; the dome of the early tenth-century Myrelaion in Constantinople, a cross-in-square church, was barely one-tenth of that (see a comparison of the plans of these two churches).
From a practical point of view, churches of different scales demanded different structural systems. For smaller churches, galleries and ambulatories were unnecessary and internal supports could be reduced to columns.
The domed basilica provided sufficient space for a larger congregation. The cross-domed church offered an effective structural design for an intermediate congregation. The cross-in-square was ideal for smaller churches with a dome less than 20 Byzantine feet in diameter. It was this smaller church type that became popular in the centuries following iconoclasm.
Hagia Eirene, Constantinople (Istanbul) (photo: Alexxx1979, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Refining old designs
Critical in the development may be the reconstruction of Hagia Eirene in Constantinople (Istanbul), destroyed in the earthquake of 740 and rebuilt later in the century (view plan of the reconstructed church). While retaining the domed basilica plan, it corrected the basic structural problem of its predecessor (inadequate lateral support for its dome) by adding transversal barrel vaults over the galleries so that the dome was evenly braced on all four sides, usually referred to as a cross-domed unit.
This bilaterally symmetrical system appears at the core of a variety of smaller buildings with cruciform plans, such as at the church now known as the Atik Mustafa Paşa Mosque in Istanbul, probably constructed in the ninth century.
Elements of a Christian basilica, adapted from Banister Fletcher, A History of Architecture on the Comparative Method, 6th ed. (London: B. T. Batsford, 1921)
Many churches appear as the reconstruction or reconfiguration of older buildings; rather than representing a new theoretical model, they express the very real concerns of a society in transition. In many examples, we find the reduction in scale of an Early Christian basilica into a new church constructed on the same foundations, reemploying many of the same architectural elements, with its basic design is transformed. Indeed, H. Eirene in Constantinople is still most often discussed as a Justinianic building, although almost all of its superstructure—and its reformulated structural system—belong to the eighth century.
H. Nikolaos, Myra (Demre), rebuilt 8th century
H. Nikolaos, Myra (Demre)
Similarly, H. Nikolaos at Myra (in southern Turkey) was rebuilt in the eighth century as a domed basilica on the foundations of its Early Christian predecessor. Elements of the older building are incorporated in the atrium and south chapels. The naos, with a dome of c. 7.70 m diameter (replaced by a groin vault in the 19th-century renovation), was extended to the east and west by narrow barrel vaults and enveloped by lateral aisles and a narthex on the ground floor, with galleries above. The church also included a second aisle to the south with arcosolia, although it remains unclear which tomb belonged to Nikolaos. Additional constructions of later centuries expanded the building on all sides.
Hagia Sophia, Vize, after 833 (photo: Vmenkov, CC BY-SA 3.0)
Hagia Sophia in Vize
Hagia Sophia in Vize (now Süleyman Paşa Mosque) is similar in design and may be dated sometime after 833. It seems likely that this was the episcopal church of Bizye, associated with events mentioned in the vita of St. Mary the Younger. Like Hagia Nikolaos, it reused the foundation of an older basilica. Rebuilt as a domed basilica, its plan is basilican on the ground level, while the gallery includes a cross-domed unit, like that of Hagia Eirene, with transverse barrel vaults extending over the galleries to brace a dome c. 6 m. in diameter, raised above a windowed drum.
The cross-in-square or four-column church type seems to have been developed in this period as well, as is well preserved in the early ninth-century Fatih Mosque (H. Stephanos ?) in Trilye in Bithynia (east of Constantinople/Istanbul). As is repeated in any number of later versions, the central dome (with a diameter of 15 Byzantine feet at Trilye) is raised on a cylindrical drum above pendentives, supported on four columns above a squarish naos. A tripartite sanctuary, partially preserved, extends to the east – the bema now a separate space from the naos – balanced by a narthex to the west. Although architectural developments in this difficult period may be credited to the rise of monasticism, notably in Bithynia, beyond individual churches, there are not surviving remains.
(Greek for “images”) refers to the religious images of Byzantium, made from a variety of media, which depict holy figures and events.
refers to any destruction of images, including the Byzantine Iconoclastic Controversy of the eighth and ninth centuries, although the Byzantines themselves did not use this term.
