Icon

An icon (from Greek {{polytonic|?????}}, eikon, "image") is an image, picture, or representation; it is a sign or likeness that stands for an object by signifying or representing it, or by analogy, as in semiotics; in computers an icon is a symbol on the monitor used to signify a command; by extension, icon is also used, particularly in modern popular culture, in the general sense of symbol — i.e. a name, face, picture or even a person readily recognized as having some well-known significance or embodying certain qualities.

The Iconoclast Period

Main article: Iconoclasm

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There was a continuing opposition to misuse of images within Christianity from very early times. "Whenever images threatened to gain undue influence within the church, theologians have sought to strip them of their power" (Belting, Hans; Likeness and Presence, Chicago and London, 1994). Further,"there is no century between the fourth and the eighth in which there is not some evidence of opposition to images even within the Church (Kitzinger, Ernst; The Cult of Images in the Age before Iconoclasm, Dumbarton Oaks, 1954; repeated by Pelikan, Jaroslav; The Spirit of Eastern Christendom 600-1700, University of Chicago Press, 1974). Nonetheless, popular favoritism for icons guaranteed their continued existence, while as yet no systematic apologia for or against icons, or doctrinal authorization or condemnation of icons existed.

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The use of icons was seriously challenged by Byzantine Imperial authority in the 8th century. Though by this time opposition to images was strongly entrenched in Judaism and in the rising religion of Islam, attribution of the impetus toward an iconoclastic movement in Eastern Orthodoxy to Muslims or Jews "seems to have been highly exaggerated, both by contemporaries and by modern scholars" (see Pelikan, The Spirit of Eastern Christendom).

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Though significant in the history of religious doctrine, the Byzantine controversy over images is not seen as of primary importance in Byzantine history. "Few historians still hold it to have been the greatest issue of the period..." (Patricia Karlin-Hayter, Oxford History of Byzantium, Oxford University Press, 2002).

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The Iconoclastic Period began when images were banned by Emperor Leo III sometime between 726 and 730. Under his son Constantine V, an ecumenical council forbidding image veneration was held at Hieria near Constantinople in 754. Image veneration was later reinstated by the Empress Regent Irene, under whom another ecumenical council was held reversing the decisions of the previous iconoclast council and taking its title as Seventh Ecumenical Council. The council declared all who refuse to venerate icons anathema (cursed). Then the ban was enforced again by Leo V in 815. And finally icon veneration was decisively restored by Empress Regent Theodora.

Related Topics:
Leo III - Constantine V - Empress Regent Irene - Seventh Ecumenical Council - Leo V - Empress Regent Theodora

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