Beginnings – The Iconoclasts versus the Cult of Icons

Icons have been worked in different shapes and forms depending on their purpose, as well as on the different substance and techniques.

In the Christian world there were already found in the earliest period of Christianity. In the forth century the two bishops Eusebius of Caesarea and Epiphanius of Salamis mention icons in which Jesus Christ, the Holy Mother of God, the Archangel Michael and some apostles were represented. However, Bishop Epiphanius of Salamis expressed open revolt against the painting of sacred figures, considering it idolatry. His resistance was especially directed against Christ’s figure being painted.

This shows that during the first centuries in the period of Early Christianity there were different and very often completely opposing views on the painting, respect and presence of icons in temples. In the course of time, this resistance to sacred paintings or icons was to lessen to the point where their presence in temples would become obligatory, or again was to increase to the point of their total removal. At the core of the conflict from the very start, the matter of idolatry, that is to say of the relationship between the painting and its archetype, was present. 

For many years ferocious and exhaustive wars were waged between the iconoclasts and iconodules in the course of which at various times the position of one or the other prevailed. However, from the beginning of the eighth century, events were to assume a completely different character. Serious conflicts erupted, and as a result the Romaoian Empire was to be shaken to its very foundations.

A more detailed survey of the history of these movements enables us to gain an understanding of the philosophical and theological basis by means of which certain positions taken up by both the one and the other of the conflicting sides become clearer.

George Ostrogorski in his well-known work “Studies of the History of the Struggle over Icons in Byzantium” states that “the animosity towards icons in Romaoian state flared up in Asia Minor provinces of the Empire and appeared there under the influence of oriental cultures (Hebrew and especially Islamic) and oriental sects (Paulicianism) and gained a hold in certain circles of the Romaoian clergy, especially in Phrygia. With the accession of the Emperor Leo III in the 20’s of the seventh century it was to become the dominant ecclesiastical teaching of the Romaoian state. The theoretical basis of Iconoclasm in this period was the Old Testament prohibition of paintings and opposed the cult of icons with the ban on idolatry”.

George Ostrogorski further says: “Iconoclasm was to reach its peak under Emperor Constantine V, son and heir to Leo III, under whose rule (741-775), after a long period of expectation during the 50’s, a severe attack upon icons took place which was to spread with ever-increasing intensity right up to the death of the Emperor.

Under Emperor Constantine V, Iconoclasm also developed further in a theoretical respect: while allusions to Christological problems appeared initially only in isolated cases in camp of the iconoclasts, the texts written by Constantine V, finally shifted the focus to questions of Christological nature which constituted the real nucleus of conflict.”

The Iconoclastic Council summoned in 754 in Constantinople in order to establish the official direction of iconoclastic doctrine referred to the texts written by Constantine V. However, in doing so they subjected them to a complete re-working, trying to eliminate, above all, dogmatic or doubtful parts of those texts.

George Ostrogorski, going into this material thoroughly, sets out the view that “an excursus into the hagiographic and chronographic literature would prove that Constantine V, as opposed to the Council he summoned, was inimically disposed not to the cult of icons but also to the cult of the Mother of God and the saints. These extreme features of Iconoclasm came to a head in the second half of Constantine’s rule when in the 60’s he set out to break the opposition of the monks”.

After this there followed a strong reaction on the part of the Iconodules, who after Constantine’s death in 775 managed to establish the cult of icons at the 7^th Oecumenical Council of 787 in Nicaea. This event concluded only the first period of the struggle against Icons. George Ostrogorski considers that “with the ending of the first period of Iconoclasm it was already spiritually exhausted”

Under Emperor Leo V the Armenian (813-820) however, Iconoclasm flared up again, only to lose something of its force during the reign of Michael II (820-829), and rise again with increased phanatism under Theophilus (829-842).

This was the situation right up to the time of the Iconodule victory and the establishment of the cult of icons in 843.

If one bears in mind that the definitive establishment of this cult took place in the middle of the 9^th century, that is to say immediately before the missionary activities of the Slavonic educators Cyril and Methodius and their disciples Clement and Naum, the question is logically posed of how it developed, what phases it went through, how Iconoclasm was reflected in Macedonia from the time of the appearance of icons in the first centuries of Christianity to the middle of the 9^th century, that is by the time of Clement of Ohrid and Naum?

As part of the Roman Empire Macedonia suffered from the same illnesses which were attacking the already weakened organism of the Empire on all sides. It was not possible that the crisis that affected the late Roman Empire, with its rotten economic and social system, should fail to affect Macedonia. The difficult social and political upheavals that caused the gradual decline of Roman rule, especially in the distant provinces, facilitated among other things to spread of the new religion – Christianity.

Apostle Paul in "The Acts of the Apostles", says that carrying out his missionary activity he went via Amphipolis and Apollonia by boat to Thessaloniki, where the Jews had a synagogue. After long debates with the Jews and Greeks St. Paul finally succeeded in converting some of them, who later became his disciples. Later on they became the pioneers of Christian community in this part of the Balkan Peninsula.

Research has proved that Christianity spread relatively fast from the Aegean Sea towards the Peninsula, especially along the main roads in the vicinity of which cities and settlements had been established.

However, if we concentrate on the first three centuries AC we must admit that on the cities and settlements no archaeological material has as yet been discovered which would point unequivocally to the establishment of new Christian communities or their influence on the art of the time. No subterranean tombs or catacombs have been discovered and hence there are no traces of very early Christian wall painting.

Such a situation may in part have been a result of the views adopted by the first Christian preachers, who prohibited or avoided the depiction of God or the martyrs of saints. Apostle Paul himself spoke to the Athenians on this subject: “Therefore, since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone – an image made by man’s design and skill".

However, research into the famous catacombs of Rome shows that the first Christian painters, who in the beginning worked both for pagan and for Christian patrons, had found acceptable solutions. They simply avoided sculpture, which most of all could have been identified with pagan divinities, trying to avoid the small-scale artifacts with which the stalls in front of the pagan temples were crowded. They adopted a shallow relief, creating works from virtually any material, though especially from stone, which was mainly used for sarcophagi. The hundred or more sarcophagi discovered to date in Rome alone illustrate in splendid fashion the transitional period when the pagan painters and sculptors, faced with commissions from new patrons, sought and found the most suitable means of illustrating scenes relating to the new religion. Nevertheless, even when this shallow relief was in question, the sculpture turned out to be very realistic. Hence fresco-painting came to be considered more suitable for the expression of the spiritual aspirations of the Christian believers. Thus, as early as the second half of the third century whole compositions with Biblical themes were painted in some of the Roman catacombs. The image of the Mother of God with the infant Christ in her arms appeared in this period.

It should be stressed that, in contrast to these examples, no such traces from the first three centuries of Christianity have been discovered so far on Macedonian soil. With the official recognition of Christianity (the Edict of Milan, 313) conditions gradually changed.

From the example of the ancient city Stobi, which can be relatively thoroughly researched, we can gather information about the changes and new activities, both in terms of religion architecture and in the field of fine and applied art. In doing so, we use the discoveries of one of the best authorities on the ancient city of Stobi, Professor Gorge Mano-Zisi. Investigating the stratigraphy and urban development of the ancient city, he points to several significant undertakings of special interest to a study of the following information: “towards the end of the third century the Polyharm Synagogue had already been built, according to an inscription on a column and the fresco dedication within the framework of the tabula-ansata. The portico with a capital and masks in the House of Psalms also dates from that time. The stamped medallion with the Menorach of Eustatius certainly belongs to the 4^th century, when both the synagogue and the house next to it were refurbished, linked to each other and given luxurious frescoes, stucco-work and mosaics. After the theatre, the synagogue was also demolished, and when a Christian church was constructed on its foundations the house was adapted as an ecclesiastical residence”. On the site of the one-time temple of pagan healers first a martyrium was built and later an Episcopal basilica. Beside the theatre in which, passing along their Via venatorium, there died martyrs like those in the baths near St. Demetrius in Thessaloniki, their bones were preserved, and there were the tombs of the first bishops in the apsidal confessional and the vestibule of the crypt under the south nave of the church. From a single-naved church with a tribelon and an open narthex in same period, the 4^th century”. “Around the middle of the 5^th century Philip’s Basilica marked the supreme triumph of Christianity in Stobi”

The buildings of new shrines created more favorable conditions for an increasing use of fresco-painting in their decoration: Evidence for this is found in fragments of frescoes preserved on the walls of the Episcopal basilica and the Baptisterium in Stobi, as well as numerous fragments of frescoes discovered in sacral buildings at other archaeological sites in Macedonia. On the basis of clearly expressed stylistic characteristics these frescoes can be dated from the 4^th-6^th centuries.

Were there icons in Macedonia in this early period?

This question can be answered positively following the discovery of the terracotta icons at Vinicko Kale archaeological site at Vinica in the middle reaches of the River Bregalnica. An impressive number of these icons – 42 intact and well preserved icons and hundreds of fragments belonging to others – were discovered in 1985. They date from the period from the close of the sixth to the end of the seventh century.

However, it should at once be stressed that no icons painted on wood have been discovered yet. A more complete and more convincing answer to the question of why there are no traces of easel painting in Macedonia from the end of fourth to the end of the ninth century has not been provided to date. Various reasons have been put forward connected with the technological characteristics of icons on wood, as well-known historical events, more particularly the attacks by the Germanic and Hun tribes and then the destruction, pillage and devastation carried out by Slavs and the Avars. Nor should the Iconoclastic struggles and disputes be forgotten as possible reasons for the lack of easel painting or the destruction of any such work produced. However, it is the opinion of the author that of the many reasons put forward, one deserves special attention.

 >>

Icons of Macedonia

Webmaster