The Iconoclasm Controversy
• As we saw in Lecture 23, even greater tension was generated in the
8 th and 9th centuries as a result of the iconoclasm controversy.
• In the iconoclast struggle, the papacy steadily represented the
orthodox position and was a source of support for iconodules—
those who venerated sacred images—in both East and West;
consequently, the iconoclast emperors were intensely hostile to
the papacy.
o In 732, Leo III (the Isaurian) took away major territories from
the jurisdiction of the pope (Calabria, Sicily, Illyricum) and
assigned them to the patriarch of Constantinople.o The collapse of Byzantine power in Italy (at the fall of Ravenna
to the Lombards in 751) impelled the popes to seek political
support from the Frankish kings; Pope Stephen II and King
Pepin struck an alliance in 754.• The bitterness of the iconoclast controversy, in turn, complicated the
tangled involvement of the papacy in the 9th-century Photian affair,
a miserable and complicated power struggle in which absolutely no
real religious value was at stake.
o The patriarch Ignatius was appointed by the empress Theodora
in 847, but he was harsh toward former iconoclasts. When
Theodora was deposed, Ignatius was replaced by Photius, an
educated man with more moderate views.o Theodora’s replacement, the emperor Michael III, invited
the pope to send legates to a council in order to condemn
iconoclasm. The legates recognized Photius as patriarch. But
Pope Nicholas I, influenced by followers of Ignatius, rejected
Photius and reinstated Ignatius as patriarch. This was a form of
interference that was insupportable to the Byzantines.o In 865, the Bulgarians converted to Orthodoxy but then turned
to Rome and agitated for inclusion of the filioque in the Nicene
Creed. This was regarded by the Byzantines as a further