Read About Icons and Iconography

In traditional Christiantity, an icon (from Greek eikon, "image") is a flat picture of Christ, Mary, Saints and Prophets or holy events from the Sacred Scriptures. Most icons are painted (usually referred to as "written") in egg tempura on wood, but some are created with mosaic tiles, ivory, or other materials. In Eastern Christianity, both Catholic and Orthodox, icons are sacred works of art that provide inspiration and connect the worshipper with the spiritual world. The scenes depicted in icons usually relate to liturgical celebrations rather than directly to historical events and the composition style is highly symbolic and not meant to be a realistic interpretation but rather a spiritual interpretation of the person or event depicted.

History of Icons

Icons in the Early Church

Images and pictures of Christ and the saints were a part of earliest Christianity. Christians from the very beginning adorned their catacombs with paintings of Christ, of the saints, of scenes from the Bible and allegorical groups, and Christian statues have been discovered that date to the first century. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, "The idea that the Church of the first centuries was in any way prejudiced against pictures and statues is the most impossible fiction." However, it is important to distinguish between the use of images and the reverence paid to them.

With regard to the level of veneration, if any, paid to images in the early church, written sources are almost nonexistent. However, some conclusions can be made on the basis of what we do know. The early Christians' "monotheism, their insistence on the fact that they serve only one almighty unseen God, their horror of the idolatry of their neighbors, the torture and death that their martyrs suffered rather than lay a grain of incense before the statue of the emperor's numen are enough to convince us that they were not setting up rows of idols of their own. On the other hand, the place of honor they give to their symbols and pictures, the care with which they decorate them argue that they treated representations of their most sacred beliefs with at least decent reverence."

It seems that the tradition of showing respect and veneration to images developed gradually and as a natural consequence of cultural norms. "It would be natural that people who bowed to, kissed, incensed the imperial eagles and images of Caesar (with no suspicion of anything like idolatry), who paid elaborate reverence to an empty throne as his symbol, should give the same signs to the cross, the images of Christ, and the altar. To the Byzantine Christian of the fifth and sixth centuries prostrations, kisses, incense were the natural ways of showing honor to anyone; … he was accustomed to treat symbols in the same way, giving them relative honor that was obviously meant really for their prototypes. And so he carried his normal habits with him into church."

Such veneration spread in some measure to Rome and the West, but their home was the court at Constantinople (Byzantium), and to this day the descendents of the subjects of the Eastern emperor place a much higher importance on the veneration of icons than their western (Catholic) counterparts.

By the eighth century, icons had become a major part of eastern devotion. The walls of churches were covered inside from floor to roof with icons, scenes from the Bible, allegorical groups. Icons were taken on journeys as a protection, they marched at the head of armies, and presided at the races in the hippodrome; they hung in a place of honor in every room, over every shop; they covered cups, garments, furniture, rings; wherever a possible space was found, it was filled with a picture of Christ, Mary, or a saint. Even more reverence was paid to icons believed to have miraculous origins, such as the image of Edessa.

That veneration of these icons gradually became excessive is attested to by several sources, including a (perhaps slightly exaggerated) letter from the iconoclastic Emperor Michael II (r. 820-9):

They have removed the holy cross from the churches and replaced it by images before which they burn incense.... They sing psalms before these images, prostrate themselves before them, implore their help. Many dress up images in linen garments and choose them as godparents for their children. Others who become monks, forsaking the old tradition -- according to which the hair that is cut off is received by some distinguished person -- let it fall into the hands of some image. Some priests scrape the paint off images, mix it with the consecrated bread and wine and give it to the faithful. Others place the body of the Lord in the hands of images from which it is taken by the communicants. Others again, despising the churches, celebrate Divine Service in private houses, using an image as an altar (Mansi, XIV, 417-22).

Meanwhile, the western church remained fairly moderate on the issue. Pope Gregory the Great (d. 602) explained the general western view of images as "books for the ignorant" in a letter to an eastern Iconoclastic bishop:

Not without reason has antiquity allowed the stories of saints to be painted in holy places. And we indeed entirely praise thee for not allowing them to be adored, but we blame thee for breaking them. For it is one thing to adore an image, it is quite another thing to learn from the appearance of a picture what we must adore. What books are to those who can read, that is a picture to the ignorant who look at it; in a picture even the unlearned may see what example they should follow; in a picture they who know no letters may yet read.

The Iconoclastic Controversy

Although there was intermittent opposition to the veneration of images in the first seven centuries of the church, the issue first became a major point of controversy in the eighth century. The iconoclastic controversy began in earnest under Emperor Leo III (r. 716-41), a strong-willed man who opposed the veneration of images and began to persecute those who did so. Leo's iconoclastic position may have been influenced by Khalifa Omar II (717-20), who was unsuccessful in trying to convert the emperor to Islam but probably convinced him that pictures and images are idols, but he was also convinced of this by Christian opponents of icons who gained his ear.

In 726 AD, Leo III published an edict declaring images to be idols, forbidden by Exodus 10:4-5. He commanded that all such images in churches be destroyed, and the soldiers immediately began to carry out his orders throughout the empire. There was a famous picture of Christ, called Christos antiphonetes, over the gate of the palace at Constantinople, the destruction of which provoked a serious riot among the people.

Germanus, the patriarch of Constantinople, protested against the edict and appealed to the pope (729). But the emperor deposed him as a traitor (730) and had Anastasius (730-54), a willing instrument of the government, appointed in his place. The most steadfast opponents of the Iconoclasts throughout this story were the monks. It is true that there were some who took the side of the emperor but as a body, eastern monasticism was steadfastly loyal to the old custom of the Church. Leo therefore joined with his iconoclasm a fierce persecution of monasteries and eventually tried to suppress monasticism altogether.

Pope Gregory II (r. 713-31) responded to the appeal of the deposed patriarch with a long defense of images. He explains the difference between them and idols, with some surprise that Leo does not already understand the distinction. But Leo remained steadfast and the persecution continued to rage in the East. Monasteries were dest