Icontroversy

The icon is a defining element of Eastern Orthodox Christianity that, like much of Christian history, has a controversial past. Icon veneration became prominent, and subsequently controversial, in the eighth century CE (Global). The central theme in the midst of the controversy related to incarnation versus idolatry. Much controversy was perhaps initially an inter-religious argument, but also was a controversy within the Christian church – eventually dividing the Western Catholic Christians from the Eastern Orthodox (Global).  

The inter-religious controversy was between the iconophilistic (image-loving)Christians and Jews and Muslims, who both abhorred the veneration of images, feeling that it was akin to idolatry (Global). One prominent Christian wrote in Arabic, the language of the Muslims, to the iconophiles that they should not allow pressure from Jews or Muslims to prevent them from worshiping the images of their Christian veneration (Global).  John of Damascus, who lived in Muslim lands, wrote to the iconophiles in both that their veneration of the images of Christ, the Mother Mary, or any of the Saints, was an appropriate form of worship to those individuals (Global and Tradition).

Iconoclasm, the destruction of images, began in the eighth century CE when the Byzantine ruler, Leo III ordered that all the icons be destroyed and those that promoted or made icons should be punished or killed (Global and Tradition).  Emperor Leo III saw the icons as idols and the veneration of them as idolatry, which was against the Ten Commandments, therefore he sought to destroy them same as he did the pagan idols. His successor, Constantine V was also an iconoclast and continued the siege against icon veneration. He even convened a council in Nicea in the late 700s to officially condemn icon veneration and the iconophiles as he considered them to be blasphemous for two reasons. First, he saw the veneration of idols as idolatry, as mentioned above. Second, he believed that the iconophiles were limiting God by assuming that divinity can be captured in paintings or even be divine themselves. This condemnation was the moment that Western Catholic Christianity and Eastern Orthodox Christianity essentially split, as the Orthodox Christians maintained their veneration of idols as one of their defining elements of Christian identity and ritual. John of Damascus was pivotal to the continuation of icon veneration to be orthodox (Global and Tradition).

Since John of Damascus lived in Muslim lands, he was protected from the church and Leo III’s siege against iconoclasts. He wrote against the iconoclasts and encouraged the Orthodox Christians to continue their veneration of icons because of how he believed in the incarnation of the spirit in the material. He saw that the icons were divine for the same reason that Jesus Christ was divine. Christ was an incarnation of the spirit of God in human flesh. Since divinity could be captured in human flesh that was of the material world, so could pictures of Christ contain divinity. John extended this incarnation to the Mother Mary, as he believed her holy for being the mother of God, and also the saints, as they obviously (to him) contained divinity as witnessed by the miracles they were able to perform, both alive and dead (relics collected by the church and Christians).

Not only did John of Damascus think that the icons could contain the divine, but also he believed that the images served as prototypes that conveyed the worship of the icon to the individual represented. It was that representation that was important to John. The representation was actually a presentation and therefore a presence of the individual in the image. He did not believe that iconophiles were worshiping of the material that contained the images, but the actual individual that was represented in the image. The image was a presence, a reminder, and a prototype that allowed the worshiper to pass the worship to the Christ, Mary, or the saints and in return receive miracles of the divine. The image was not an idol to John; rather it was a gateway or door to the divine. Icons were how the world could see the unseen, just as Jesus Christ as an incarnation of God was how the unseen was made visible (Tradition). 

I originally wrote this piece in November 2011 for my Christianity class