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Ikons or idols?

© Steve Hayes

Many Protestants, on visiting an Orthodox Church, are struck by the number of pictures, called ikons. In long-established churches, ikons cover just about all the available wall space and there are also stands with portable ikons. The visitor will notice that members of the church kiss these when they enter the building, and that many bow and touch the ground with their right hand before they kiss the ikons.

Some Protestants are shocked by this, and have been heard to say that Orthodox churches are full of "idols". And if they say this in the presence of Orthodox Christians, the Orthodox are inclined to dismiss the Protestants as heretics and iconoclasts.

During the first centuries of Christianity, Christians held different opinions about pictures of Christ and the apostles. Some rejected representational art, or were uneasy about it, believing that it was prohibited in the scriptures. Others accepted it, and ikons came to be used more commonly in churches. The issue was not resolved until he iconoclastic controversy of the 8th and 9th centuries.

The Iconoclastic Controversy

Those opposed to the use of ikons were increasingly drawn from the heretical fringes of Christianity: the monophysites, who downplayed the human nature of Christ; those with gnostic tendencies, who thought that all matter was evil, and later the possible influence of Islam. The emperor Leo III believed that the use of ikons was hindering the conversion of Muslims and Jews to Christianity, and ordered that they be destroyed. The church was divided, and those who retained ikons (the iconodules) were persecuted by those who destroyed the ikons (the iconoclasts). After the death of the Emperor Leo IV in 780 his widow, the Empress Irene, encouraged the calling of the Seventh Ecumenical Council (the Second Council of Nicaea), which met in 787. The Council finally settled the issue from the theological point of view, and defined the way in which ikons were to be used, and carefully distinguished between the proper use and the misuse of ikons (which would be idolatry).

Many of the theological contributions to settle the dispute came from outside the empire, one of the most notable being that of St John of Damascus. His contribution was all the more significant since he lived in a place under Muslim rule.

Though the Church had settled the matter theologically, there was still opposition to ikons from the secular power, and some of the later emperors also supported iconoclasm.

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