Byzantine iconoclasm

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A unique testimony of iconoclastic art can be found in Hagia Irene . A simple cross instead of icons and rich mosaics.

The Byzantine Iconoclasm was a time of passionate theological debate in the Orthodox Catholic Church and the Byzantine Imperial House during the 8th and 9th centuries about the correct use and veneration of icons . The two parties were later referred to as iconoclasts (icon destroyers) and iconodules (icon worshipers).

The reasons that led to the Byzantine image dispute are still debated today, with various theses being discussed - from Islamic influence to the commandment “You shouldn't make an image of God (nis) for yourself” to personal motives of Byzantine emperors.

Any assessment of the picture dispute is made more difficult by the fact that the writings of authors who are hostile to pictures were destroyed by them after the victory of the icon modules, so that the sources are almost only partial representations of the victors, which distort the motifs of the enemies of the picture and the extent of the destruction could have exaggerated. Modern research has therefore also revised many judgments of older research.

The first phase of the iconoclasm

Under Emperor Leo III. the miliaresion , a new silver coin without a figurative representation, is introduced. It is the Byzantine counterpart to the dirhem , which was introduced by the caliph Abd al-Malik in 696. The purely textual representation is interpreted iconoclastically by some numismatists.

In the older research, Emperor Leo III was. (717–741) regarded as a staunch iconoclast, based on the traditional photo-friendly sources. It was assumed that his Syrian origins might have influenced him by oriental-Islamic ideas. Accordingly, Leo III. may have been of the opinion that it was impossible to capture the “divine being” in pictures ( aperigraptos ). In the year 726 (according to other considerations 730), after a terrible seaquake had raged in the Aegean (the eruption of the Santorini darkened the sky for several days), in a demonstrative act he was supposed to remove the large golden icon of Christ at the Chalke gate of his imperial palace to have. According to later sources, this is said to have led to an initial riot among the population; Some usurpations were previously classified in this context (see Kosmas and Tiberios Petasius ). In 730 Leo is said to have banned the worship of the icons of Jesus, Mary and the saints and allegedly ordered the destruction of these images.

However, all relevant sources are very problematic; in the Latin sources ( Liber Pontificalis ) it concerns later insertions, while the surviving Byzantine (picture-friendly) sources were written with some time lag. It is therefore unclear what actions Leo actually took. Due to continued good relations with the papacy and the fact that Leo evidently found support for his general politics among a large part of the population in the east of the empire, especially among the spreading Paulicians , in the army and in parts of the clergy , the representation of the Image-friendly sources are now viewed very skeptically. There is no reliable evidence that there was an edict hostile to images or that Leo officially and so vehemently spoke out against the icons. The sources colored with icons seem to distort the view for the most part, because other reports show that icons could still be shown openly in Constantinople in 727. Leo therefore probably did not order a systematic removal of images, and neither does his policy appear to have met with serious opposition.

It is clear, however, that Leo preferred the cross as a symbol, a symbol that all Christians could accept without difficulty. Leo was able to proclaim this policy, if he pursued it systematically, because of his personal popularity and his military triumphs - he had earned the goodwill of Constantinople by defeating the siege army of the Omayyad caliph (from 717 to 718) . The reports of the avowed icon module Germanos even suggest that the conflict over the worship of icons was not initiated by the imperial side. There may have been some criticism of the icons, but it took place under Leo III. apparently no real iconoclasm was taking place.

Leo's son Constantine V (741–775) was also considered a keen iconoclast for a long time, but this has given way to a more differentiated view in recent research. Constantine V was evidently no supporter of the worship of images and wanted to contain it, but many of the allegations against him in the sources are problematic and often more polemic. Whether there were really bloody persecutions of admirers of images during Constantine's reign is not certain and very questionable, since almost only sources from the perspective of the icon modules have survived. The council of Hiereia convened by the emperor in 754 , at which the worship of images was condemned and John of Damascus and Germanos of Constantinople were excommunicated, were not followed by the drastic measures that might have been expected. The actual approach of Constantine was apparently less harsh in questions of religious policy and was also often not connected with the iconoclast, as was often assumed due to the tendentious, image-friendly tradition.

In fact, several clergymen supported the policy of Emperor Constantine V. Evidence of an escape from persecution because of iconoclasm is very poor for this period. It is more likely that Constantine's sometimes harsh actions aimed primarily at his political opponents, who were only later transfigured into martyrs of image worship. Rather, the emperor seems to have acted against oppositional groups and conspirators; a brief and very limited persecution of some monks probably took place for these reasons and was later associated with the emperor's religious policy. Monks also appear as advisers to the emperor, especially since there were quite a number of them who refused to worship images. Later references to the iconoclastic emperors, who also succeeded in stabilizing the borders, prove that there was by no means only a negative memento of this militarily very successful emperor - something which the "iconodular" emperors who followed shortly thereafter initially failed.

Constantine's successor, Leo IV (775–780), was also an opponent of the worship of images, but was moderate in implementation. His wife Irene was one of the icon modules and later sources tendentiously portrayed Leo in a rather negative way, in order to illustrate the contrast to the subsequent picture-friendly time.

The Second Council of Nicaea

After Leo's death, Irene became regent for her underage son Constantine VI . She ended the first phase of the iconoclast by convening the Second Council of Nicaea of 787, where the worship of icons was considered permitted, but their worship was expressly forbidden. This was justified with the teaching of the incarnation , as John of Damascus had formulated it: Because God became flesh in Jesus Christ and thereby assumed a concrete, physical, human form, a physical representation is possible. The saints each embody the Holy Spirit in their own way . Christ and the saints can now be represented visually - in contrast to the Second Commandment , which was valid before the incarnation of Jesus Christ. However, it was also decided that all icons should be provided with inscriptions in order to prevent icon worship from becoming independent as an object, regardless of the real figure depicted. Even the Pope in Rome , where the images of saints had never been seriously questioned, supported these decisions. In the Frankish empire under Charlemagne, however, the resolutions, which had been misinterpreted as the commandment of image worship due to an imprecise and incorrect translation, provoked opposition. This was raised in the Capitulare contra synodum , justified in detail in the Libri Carolini and formulated in a weakened form at the Synod of Frankfurt with regard to the papal attitude. He finally got even on the Synod of Paris 825, on the one clear criticism of the decision of Pope Hadrian I. practiced again discussed.

The Second Council of Nicaea is officially the seventh ecumenical council of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches ; in Protestantism , views on this council range from total rejection to conditional recognition.

Icon worship was also permitted during the reign of Empress Irene's successor, Nikephorus I (802-811), and two short reigns after him.

The second phase of the iconoclasm

Emperor Leo V (813–820) initiated a second phase of the iconoclastic controversy in 815, presumably also due to the memory of the military successes of the iconoclastic emperors, which the iconoclastic emperors did not repeat. This phase was probably led quite sharply at times. It seems to have been conducted with greater severity in the provinces as well, unlike in the first phase of the iconoclast, which only affected a minority (see above). Several church people apparently supported the new imperial policy. The iconoclasm continued under Leo's successors Michael II and his son Theophilos . However, the public commitment to imperial politics was primarily of importance; there is evidence that punishments were avoided and private veneration was hardly disrupted as long as this was not done publicly. The example of the avowed icon worshiper Methodios , who became a close confidante of the emperor Theophilos, shows that there was no complete suppression of the image worshipers. The iconoclasm was under Michael III. ended in 843.

Restoration of image worship

After Theophilos' death, his wife Theodora and the eunuch Theoktistos took over the government for the underage heir Michael III. Like Irene 50 years before her, Theodora mobilized the icon modules and in 843 ordered the restoration of the icons. In order to finally bring down iconoclasm, she also ordered the persecution and extermination of the Paulicians . From the evangelical side, these processes are seen today as an enforcement of the worship of images by monks against the common people. The situation is by no means so clear.

Since then, the decree of 843 has been celebrated annually on the first Sunday of Lent in the Orthodox Church as the feast of Orthodoxy .

literature

  • Georg Ostrogorsky: Studies on the history of the Byzantine picture dispute (historical investigations 5). Marcus, Breslau 1929 (Reprint Hakkert, Amsterdam 1964). [influential presentation, but outdated state of research]
  • S. Gero: Byzantine Iconoclasm during the Reign of Leo III . Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 41. Louvain 1973.
  • Johannes Irmscher (ed.): The Byzantine picture dispute. Socio-economic prerequisites - ideological foundations - historical effects. A collection of research papers . Koehler & Amelang, Leipzig 1980.
  • Hans Georg Thümmel : The early history of the Eastern Church image theory. Texts and investigations at the time before the picture dispute . Texts and studies on the history of early Christian literature, Vol. 139. Akad.-Verl., Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-05-000828-8 .
  • Hans Belting : image and cult. A history of the image before the age of art . Beck, Munich 1990 (6th edition 2004)
  • Heinz Gauer: Texts on the Byzantine picture dispute. The synodal letter of the three patriarchs of the east from 836 and its metamorphosis in seven centuries . Studies and texts on Byzantine Studies 1. Lang, Frankfurt am Main a. a. 1994, ISBN 3-631-46757-5 .
  • Ralph-Johannes Lilie (Ed.): The patriarchs of the iconoclastic time. Germanos I-Methodios I (715-847) . Berlin Byzantine Studies 5. Lang, Frankfurt am Main a. a. 1999, ISBN 3-631-35183-6 .
  • Leslie Brubaker: Inventing Byzantine Iconoclasm . Bristol Classical Press, London 2012. [current introduction]
  • Leslie Brubaker, John F. Haldon: Byzantium in the Iconoclast era. c. 680-850. A history. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge et al. 2011, ISBN 978-0-521-43093-7 . [detailed and important current presentation]
  • Leslie Brubaker, John Haldon, R. Ousterhout: Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era (ca. 680-850): The Sources. An Annotated Survey . Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Monographs 7. Ashgate, Aldershot u. a. 2001, ISBN 0-7546-0418-7 .
  • Torsten Krannich u. a .: The iconoclastic synod of Hiereia 754. Introduction, text, translation and commentary of her horos. [...] Studies and texts on antiquity and Christianity 15. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2002, ISBN 3-16-147931-9 .
  • Ambrosios Giakalis: Images of the Divine. The Theology of Icons at the Seventh Ecumenical Council . Studies in the History of Christian Traditions 122. Brill, Leiden u. a. 1994; extended edition 2005, ISBN 90-04-14328-9 .
  • Hans Georg Thümmel: The councils on the question of images in the 8th and 9th centuries. The 7th Ecumenical Council in Nikaia 787 . Council story A: representations. Schöningh, Paderborn u. a. 2005, ISBN 3-506-71374-4 ( table of contents ).
  • Thomas Bremer: "He is adored in his picture ..." Source book on the history of icon theology. SOPHIA - Sources of Eastern Theology 37. Paulinus, Trier 2015, ISBN 978-3-7902-1461-1 .

Remarks

  1. ↑ Front: IhSVS XRIS-TVS nICA ( Jesus Christ Victory or Jesus Christ Will Victory ). Reverse: LEOn / S COnST / AntInE E / C ΘEV bA / SILIS ( Leo and Konstantin, emperors from God [ek Theou] or the emperors wanted by God ).
  2. ↑ For a criticism of the older research and an overview of the more recent research, see above all Leslie Brubaker: Inventing Byzantine Iconoclasm . London 2012; Leslie Brubaker, John F. Haldon: Byzantium in the Iconoclast era, ca 680-850. A history. Cambridge 2011.
  3. ↑ Detailed overview of sources in Leslie Brubaker, John Haldon, R. Ousterhout: Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era (approx. 680–850): The Sources. Aldershot et al. a. 2001.
  4. ↑ In detail, Leslie Brubaker, John F. Haldon: Byzantium in the Iconoclast era. c. 680-850. A history. Cambridge et al. 2011, pp. 69ff.
  5. ^ Leslie Brubaker: Inventing Byzantine Iconoclasm . London 2012, pp. 22-24.
  6. ↑ In summary, Leslie Brubaker, John F. Haldon: Byzantium in the Iconoclast era. c. 680-850. A history. Cambridge et al. 2011, pp. 151-155.
  7. ↑ On Constantine's policy, see Leslie Brubaker, John F. Haldon: Byzantium in the Iconoclast era. c. 680-850. A history. Cambridge et al. 2011, p. 156ff.
  8. ↑ See Leslie Brubaker, John F. Haldon: Byzantium in the Iconoclast era. c. 680-850. A history. Cambridge et al. 2011, pp. 246f.
  9. ^ Leslie Brubaker, John F. Haldon: Byzantium in the Iconoclast era. c. 680-850. A history. Cambridge et al. 2011, p. 234ff.
  10. ^ Leslie Brubaker, John F. Haldon: Byzantium in the Iconoclast era. c. 680-850. A history. Cambridge et al. 2011, pp. 252f.
  11. ^ Leslie Brubaker: Inventing Byzantine Iconoclasm . London 2012, pp. 90ff.
  12. ↑ See Leslie Brubaker: Inventing Byzantine Iconoclasm . London 2012, p. 93.