The Iconoclasts: The End Of The Nineteenth Century

Inhabitants of the Byzantine Empire, also known as New Rome, valued religious cohesion, and the previous ideal of mos maiorum was now mirrored in Orthodox Christianity’s fundamental role in New Rome. Therefore, doctrinal disputes could cause significant problems. Subsequently, emperors took an active role in them, which succeeded in furthering the significance of these disputes. This eventually led to what is known as the Iconoclast, meaning ‘breaking of images,’ in the eighth century. The Iconoclast was the violent result of a dispute concerning the use and meaning of religious images. In Byzantium, the aid of religious images was a common practice in daily devotion. However, iconoclasts argued that the use of religious images encroached upon …show more content…
In contrast, Iconodules, so called ‘image servants’ argued that they were merely aids in worship and never objects in worship. Emperor Leo II initiated the Iconoclast movement. Perhaps Emperor Leo II was influenced by a major Muslim critique of Christianity, or perhaps he was politically and financial motivated to establish control of the church and weaken monasteries growing power, whom facilitated the majority of icon production. The conflict was ultimately resolved in the Iconodules’ favor at the end of the eighth century. However, many of the artworks in the Byzantium were ultimately destroyed. Consequently, Christian artworks created in the six centuries immediately following Jesus’ death are rare. Furthermore, there was a widening of the religious and politically differences in the Latin west and the Greek east because iconoclasm had questioned the cult of the saints and therefore the claims of