The new emperor, Michael II, was indeed able to establish a dynasty—the Amorian, or Phrygian—his son Theophilus (829–842) and his grandson Michael III (842–867) each occupying the throne in turn, but none would have forecast so happy a future during Michael II’s first years. Thomas the Slavonian, Michael’s former comrade in arms, gave himself out to be the unfortunate Constantine VI and secured his coronation at the hands of the Patriarch of Antioch. That was accomplished with the willing permission of the Muslim caliph under whose jurisdiction Antioch lay. Thomas thereupon marched to Constantinople at the head of a motley force of Caucasian peoples whose sole bonds were to be found in their devotion to iconodule doctrine and their hatred of Michael’s Iconoclasm. Assisted by Omortag and relying upon the defenses of Constantinople, Michael defeated his enemy, but the episode suggests the tensions beneath the surface of Byzantine society: the social malaise, the ethnic hostility, and the persisting discord created by Iconoclasm. All those may explain the weakness displayed throughout Theophilus’s reign, when a Muslim army defeated the emperor himself (838) as a prelude to the capture of the fortress of Amorium in Asia Minor. It may also explain the concurrent decline of Byzantine strength in the Mediterranean, manifest in the capture of Crete by the Arabs (826 or 827) and in the initiation of attacks upon Sicily that secured the island for the world of Islam. Iconoclasm certainly played its part in the further alienation of East from West, and a closer examination of its doctrines will suggest why this may have been. The Iconoclastic controversy
Iconoclasts and iconodules agreed on one fundamental point: a Christian people could not prosper unless it assumed the right attitude toward the holy images, or icons. They disagreed, of course, on what that attitude should be. Each could discover supporting arguments in the writings of the early church, and it is essential to remember that the debate over images is as old as Christian art. The fundamentals of Iconoclasm were by no means an 8th-century discovery. The ablest defender of the iconodule position was, however, the 8th-century theologian St. John of Damascus. Drawing upon Neoplatonic doctrine, John suggested that the image was but a symbol, and the creation of the icon was justified, since, by virtue of the Incarnation, God had himself become human.
The iconoclasts responded by pointing to the express wording of the Second Commandment. The condemnation therein of idolatry seems to have weighed heavily with Leo III, who may have been influenced by Islam, a religion that strictly prohibited the use of religious images. The latter point is debatable, as is the contention that Iconoclasm was particularly an expression of sentiment to be found in the eastern themes of the empire. Syrian miaphysitism may also have influenced the ideas of Constantine V and, through him, the course of debate during the last half of the 8th century. The Syrian churches gave icons less prominence than did other non-Chalcedonian churches, in part because of the influence of and pressure from Islam but also because of different interpretations of the biblical warrant for making images of Jesus Christ. Still another consideration favouring Iconoclasm may be found in the intimate connection of iconoclastic doctrine with the emperor’s conception of his role as God’s vicegerent on earth. During the late 6th and 7th centuries, iconodule emperors had viewed themselves in a pietistic fashion, emphasizing their devotion and subservience to God. Constantine V, on the other hand, pridefully replaced the icons with imperial portraits and with representations of his own victories. Viewed in that light, Iconoclasm signaled a rebirth of imperial confidence; so deservedly great was Constantine’s reputation, and so dismal were the accomplishments of his successors, that a Leo V, for one, could easily believe that God favoured the iconoclastic battalions.
Under Constantine V, the struggle against the icons became a struggle against their chief defenders, the monastic community. The immediate destruction wrought by Constantine and his zealous subordinates is, however, of less moment than the lasting effect of the persecution on the Orthodox clergy. Briefly put, the church became an institution rent by factions, wherein popular discontent found a means of expression. Intransigent iconodules looked for their leaders among the monks of Studion, the monastery founded by Studius, and they found one in the person of the monastery’s abbot, St. Theodore Studites (759–826). In the patriarch Ignatius (847–858; 867–877) they discovered a spokesman after their own hearts: one drawn from the monastic ranks and contemptuous of all the allurements that the world of secular learning seemed to offer. More significant than the men to be found on the other extreme, iconoclast patriarchs, including Anastasius and John Grammaticus, were the representatives of the moderate party, composed of the patriarchs Tarasius, Nicephorus, Methodius, and Photius. Although iconodule in sympathy, the group enjoyed little rapport with the monastic zealots. Unlike the average monk, they were often educated laymen, trained in the imperial service and ready to compromise with imperial authority.
Not only was Iconoclasm a major episode in the history of the Byzantine, or Orthodox, Church, but it also permanently affected relations between the empire and Roman Catholic Europe. The Lombard advance, it may be remembered, had restricted Byzantine authority in Italy to the exarchate of Ravenna, and to that quarter the popes of the 7th century, themselves ordinarily of Greek or Syrian origin, turned for protection against the common enemy. During the 8th century, two issues alienated Rome from Constantinople: Iconoclasm and quarrels stemming from the question of who should enjoy ecclesiastical jurisdiction over Illyricum and over Calabria in southern Italy. Pope Gregory II refused to accept the iconoclastic doctrines of Leo III, and his successor, Gregory III, had to openly condemn them at a council. Once Ravenna fell to the Lombards, and the exarchate ceased to exist in 751, the papacy had to seek a new protector. That was found in the person of the Frankish leader Pippin III, who sought some form of sanction to legitimize his seizure of the crown from the feeble hands of the last representative of the Merovingian dynasty. Thus, Pope Stephen II (or III) anointed Pippin as king of the Franks in 754, and the latter entered Italy to take arms against the Lombard king. Even the restoration of icon veneration in 787 failed to bridge the differences between Orthodox Byzantium and Catholic Europe, for the advisers of Pippin’s son and successor, Charlemagne, condemned the iconodule position as heartily as an earlier generation had rejected the iconoclast decrees of Leo III. Nor could the men of Charlemagne’s time admit that a woman—the empress Irene—might properly assume the dignity of emperor of the Romans. For all those reasons, Charlemagne, king of the Franks and Lombards by right of conquest, assented to his coronation as emperor of the Romans on Christmas Day, 800, by Pope Leo III. No longer a barbarian king, Charlemagne became, by virtue of the symbolism of the age, a new Constantine. This the Byzantine chancery could not accept, for, if there were one God, one faith, and one truth, then there could be but one empire and one emperor; surely that emperor ruled in Constantinople, not in Charlemagne’s Aachen. Subsequent disputes between Rome and Constantinople seemed often to centre on matters of ecclesiastical discipline. Underlying those differences were two more powerful considerations, neither of which could be ignored. According to theory, there could be but one empire; clearly, there were two. And between Rome and Constantinople there stood two groups of peoples open to conversion: the Slavs of central Europe and the Bulgars in the Balkans. From which of the two jurisdictions would those people accept their Christian discipline? To which, in consequence, would they owe their spiritual allegiance?