Alexander Schmemann

4. Byzantium (22 pages)

From Schmemann's A History of the Orthodox Church

Page 8

Persecution by the Iconoclasts.

Although vanquished dogmatically, iconoclasm revived with new strength after the death of Irene in 802. There were still supporters of the heresy, chiefly in government and military circles, where the glorious reign of Constantine Copronymus was remembered with intense admiration.
All the misfortunes and failures of the empire that came at the beginning of the ninth century — wars, invasions, revolts — were blamed in such quarters on icon-worship. In 815 Emperor Leo V the Armenian demanded of the Patriarch Nicephorus that the icons in churches should be raised above human height, making it impossible to kiss them. From that instant all understood that a persecution was inevitable. But on this occasion the Church was not taken unawares: the decree of the recent ecumenical council and the writings of the defenders of icon-veneration had given it strength. The entire Church rose to the defense of Orthodoxy against the emperor. The Patriarch Nicephorus was the first to suffer, but he had time to announce the imminent struggle to the Church and summon it to resistance. He was deposed and exiled. The saintly Theodore, abbot of the famous monastery of Studios in Constantinople, took his place at the head of the Orthodox population. On Palm Sunday 815, thousands of Studite monks moved through the city in procession, carrying icons. The gauntlet had been thrown down before the state and a bloody persecution began. It produced more victims than the persecution of Copronymus: scores of bishops exiled, monks drowned in sewn-up sacks or tormented in torture chambers. Somewhat lessened in violence, this persecution continued under Leo’s successors — Michael II (820-29) and Theophilus (829-42) and after the year 834 the wave of terror gained fresh intensity.

The final victory of Orthodoxy once again came through a woman. The Empress Theodora, wife of Theophilus, halted the persecution immediately after her husband’s death. In March 843, Methodius, one of the sufferers on behalf of icon-worship, took the patriarchal throne. On the first Sunday in Lent the reinstatement of icons was proclaimed in the Cathedral of St. Sophia, and this day has remained in the Church’s memory as the “Triumph of Orthodoxy.” Each year on this Sunday the Church celebrates its victory over the last of the great heresies and, solemnly proclaiming the truth, excommunicates all those who do not acknowledge it.

 

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