These are difficult questions. The iconoclasm was primarily an Eastern phenomena, and the Church in the West has never adopted the theology of religious images formulated during the conflict. This fact, coupled with our separation from both the devotional use of icons and from the iconoclasm by over a thousand years of ecclesiastical history, makes reflection on it difficult. Nonetheless, we have witnessed in recent years the growing presence of icons both in Western Churches and homes. Contemporary ecumenical initiatives and scholarly work have focused on the tradition and history of icons. Even the recently installed Archbishop of Canterbury has written a small book of meditations on praying with icons. The time seems propitious to revisit the crises that produced the theology of the icon. In this paper, I hope to offer simply a brief account of the main issues, and of the history and central events, of the iconoclastic period.

We can be guided in our inquiry into the history and theology of icons by a few simple questions. At the heart of the iconoclastic conflict are two issues: Firstly, are religious images of Jesus and his saints permissible? Secondly, if they are permissible, is it appropriate to venerate them? Of these two issues, the most contested by the iconoclasts was the question of veneration. Some iconoclasts could accommodate religious images, but all of them rejected their veneration as idolotrous. What we mean by "veneration", and why it was an issue of central importance for the iconoclasts and iconophiles, will be explored shortly.

Images before the Iconoclasm:

The history of the iconoclasm is complex. Christian iconography in its most general sense has a history as old as the Church itself, attested to by the catacomb paintings and mosaics that date from the earliest centuries of the Church's subterranean existence. When Constantine made Christianity the religion of the Empire in the fourth century and encouraged the building of churches, Christian art began to flourish. Constantine's churches were characteristically decorated with mosaics depicting scenes, if not whole cycles, of biblical history. And the commendation of Christian art by numerous Church Fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries affirms the power and effectiveness of Christian iconography. As St Gregory of Nyssa writes: "For the silent painting speaks on the walls and does much good."

But is the art of the early Church as we have examined it today equivalent to the art of the icon? What is an icon? Alexander Schmemann points out that the icon, properly understood, is a later development of the Christian tradition, emerging out of the theological and doctrinal developments of the Church's early centuries. Prior to the icon properly speaking (what we might call the Byzantine or devotional icon) the first Christian images were primarily symbolic - subterranean signs of the faith,

rich in meaning for the baptized - for the initiates - and meaningless or hermetic to others. They include the Christ monogram, various forms of cross, and the fish; the initial symbolic representations were references to the New Testament, such as the branches of the vine, the Lamb and the loaves - and many others too. In the 3rd century, pictures appear that show scenes from Holy Scripture. These are preserved mainly in the catacombs in Rome.

The iconography of the catacombs, then, was often symbolic or didactic. Christ may be represented as a lamb, or the Holy Communion figured as loaves of bread. But there were also in the catacombs numerous iconographic representations, that is to say, representations of persons, drawn with the simplicity associated with the later tradition of icons. Catacomb art contained in potential the seeds of the full flowering of iconography in the Byzantine period.

The icon, however, differs from earlier, primarily symbolic, representations. It emerges in the fifth and sixth centuries and is most easily distinguished from earlier images by two features: firstly, icons do not represent Christ symbolically, but in his incarnate form - they represent his person, and the person of the Blessed Virgin or of the other saints they depict. The importance of this transition from symbolic to "personal" representations of Christ was confirmed by the Quinisext Council that met in 692. They declared that representations of Christ's historic incarnation should be preferred over symbolic ones. Symbols, they argued, belonged properly to the Old Testament world of prophets and types of things to come, not to the new world of revelation in Christ. Icons are heirs, however, of the human images portrayed in the catacombs. But, significantly, they needn't represent Jesus or the saints explicitly within the context of biblical history. Though always biblical and always communicating the dogma of the Church, icons of Jesus or the saints can be made that do not locate them within a particular event of sacred history. This is important for the second aspect by which we may distinguish icons from many earlier images. Icons are images, as Georges Drobot notes, "before which we do not hesitate to pray". No doubt many of us hesitate to pray before them, given their foreigness to our religious tradition, but what Drobot means is that central to the icon is its devotional character. The icon apprehended with the eyes of faith commands our honour and veneration because in it Christ and his saints are made present. This presence compels us to prayer, because we find ourselves in the presence of the Divine. This is the startling and difficult claim of the Orthodox iconographic tradition with which we must come to grips.

Some general features of orthodox iconography should be noted as we proceed. The production of icons is governed by tradition. Icons are produced out of a primarily monastic ascetic and spiritual discipline in accordance with traditions of composition. Saints are recognizable because of traditional postures, traditional ways of representing their beards or hair or clothing. Because icons make present Jesus or a saint, fidelity to traditional images ensures that the likeness between the one depicted and his or her depiction is maintained. The painting of an icon is a spiritual activity, accompanied by fasting and prayer. Indeed, the painting is itself a prayer, produced out of the iconographer's own contemplation. Iconographers do not seek originality in their compositions, but faithfulness to the Church's tradition. The apparently unnatural mode of representation used by iconographers to depict the saints is crucially important to the icon's theological and devotional meaning. Icons always represent, not simply the saint in his or her earthly life, but the saint perfectly transfigured by the glory of God - that is to say, the saint deified, made like God. For this reason, the physical attributes of the saints are not represented "naturally". The saint is transformed entirely by particpation in God's glory - ears and eyes see and hear spiritually, the feet and hands touch spiritually, the mouth speaks spiritually. The icon attempts to make present to us the reality of this transfiguration, and in its fidelity to the truth of our glorification in Christ is in fact profoundly realistic.

The theology of the icon develops with the Church's ever-deepening understanding of the Incarnation, which culminated in the Council of Chalcedon's dogmatic definition in the fifth century. The devotional icon of Christ developed in the wake of the Chalcedonian definition. This definition makes clear that in the single person of Christ, both God and Man dwell fully. And as such, "In [Christ], God becomes visible. But that means," writes Alexander Schmemann, "that he also becomes portrayable. An image of the Man Jesus is an image of God, because Christ is the God-Man." The crux of the iconoclastic controversy is the question of the icon's fidelity to Chalcedonian Christology. Do images of Christ compromise or affirm the theology of the incarnation? How does the veneration of the icon affirm or deny the incarnation? Though the iconoclasm was concerned with all icons, it quickly focused around the image of Jesus. If icons of Jesus were permissible, than an argument could be made for all icons. If they were not, then neither were icons of the saints. We will primarily concern ourselves with the icon of Christ as we proceed.

Answering these questions about icons obliges us to come to terms with the theological skepticism concerning religious images that permeates the history of Christian iconography and which gave an impetus to iconoclastic policies. While Church Fathers like St. Gregory of Nyssa supported religious images, Fathers from Origen to Athenagoras of Athens to Clement of Alexandria were either dismissive of or ambiguous in their estimation of them. They were often caught up in battles against non-Christian and idolotrous uses of images and they rigorously applied the commandment given to Israel: "You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them". It was to the litany of patristic arguments against religious images and pagan art that the iconoclasts turned to support their attack on icons.

The Iconoclasm:

There were two phases to the iconoclasm. The first phase of the iconoclasm dates from 726 to its defeat at the second Council of Nicea in 787. The second spanned the years 813-843. Many factors contributed to the rise of iconoclasm. The conflict took place against a backdrop of political and religious upheaval. By the seventh century, for example, three of the five historical Christian Patriarchates were under Arab rule. Constantinople itself was besieged in 717. Coupled with these political concerns, there had also developed superstitious uses of icons. The Holy Mysteries were sometimes celebrated on an icon instead of an altar; paint was sometimes scrapped from icons and mixed with the Eucharistic elements; icons were used as godparents at baptisms. But none of these factors are alone sufficient to explain the rise and popularity of the iconoclastic movement. I think that Christoph Schönborn is correct when he suggests that whatever the truth to the claims that the iconoclasm was born out of political, military and religious unrest, Emperor Leo III and his son Constantine, the initiators of the iconoclasm, were engaged in a self-described religious reform. Leo wanted to restore Constantinople to the glory of its Constantinian days some four hundred years prior to his rule. What better way to restore the health of the Empire than to purge the vanities and superstitions of its religious life?

In 726, Leo's first edict against religious images removed the image of Christ from above the Khalke Gate in Constantinople and replaced it with a cross. This dramatically confirmed Leo's intention both to "free the empire from the sin of idolatry," and also, to "place it once more under the victorious symbol of Christ, the sign under which the great Constantine had triumphed: in hoc signo vinces!" His efforts found ecclesiastical support, though not from the Pope in Rome, Gregory II, or from the Patriarch of Constantinople, St. Germanus, who reportedly responded to Leo's intention to destroy the icons: "Lord, may such an evil never be accomplished under your rule. For anyone who does anything of the sort is the forerunner of the Anti-Christ and the destroyer of the divine economy according to the flesh." For these sentiments, Patriarch Germanus was exiled and replaced by a Bishop of Leo's choosing and of iconoclast sympathies.

But to what did Leo object in the religious iconography of the 8th century? Why did he take up arms against religious images when, as he himself acknowledged in his correspondence with Pope Gregory II, no Council of the Church had ever condemned them? Primarily, Leo rejected both the claim that icons did not contravene God's commandment against graven images and the veneration that icons received from Christians. "Let me know," he reportedly wrote to Pope Gregory, "who has taught us to venerate and bow down to things made with hands, while God legislates not to do so?"

But it was under Leo's son, Constantine V, that the iconoclasm would receive a more complete theological justification, having to do specifically with the icon of Christ. Though other issues attended the iconoclastic controversy, such as the theology of the Holy Communion and the veneration and intercession of saints, the theological battle was waged primarily over the image of Christ. In the wake of the military victories that seemed to affirm his father Leo's iconoclastic edicts, Constantine called a Council in the city of Hieria in 754 to condemn religious images. Unlike his father, who saw no comments in earlier Councils on icons, Constantine argued that his iconoclastic position was supported by the Christological definitions of the earlier Councils. This is a striking development. Leo was unable to locate a Conciliar decree that clearly supported his actions, but his son argued that the entire theological tradition of the Church supported his iconoclastic policies! John Meyendorff summarizes Constantine's position:

It is remarkable that Constantine... formally referred to the authority of the first six councils; for him iconoclasm was not a new doctrine, but the logical outcome of the Christological debates of the previous centuries. The painter, the Council of Hieria affirmed, when he makes an image of Christ can paint either his humanity alone, thus separating it from the divinity, or both his humanity and his divinity. In the first case he is a Nestorian; in the second he assumes that divinity is circumscribed by humanity, which is absurd; or that both are confused, which makes him a monophysite.

Constantine argued, then, that visually representing Christ denies the Incarnation. Essentially, Constantine argued, you cannot represent both of Christ's natures iconically without falling into heresy: "The mystery of Christ cannot be captured in human art."

It must be emphasized that the iconoclasm was a strikingly efficient Imperial policy, and certainly a violent one. Few pre-iconoclastic wood-panel icons have survived into the twenty-first century, most of them in St. Catherine's Monastery, Sinai. And the violent persecutions that formed part of iconoclastic policy led to the deaths, maiming, and exile of thousands upon thousands of orthodox Christians. Notably the purge effected monastics, who were often vigorously and vocally opposed to the iconoclasm. But interestingly, the iconoclasm was not a wholesale destruction of religious images or artistic images. Indeed, Constantine V himself, one of the more violent iconoclast Emperors, had hunting scenes painted on Church walls in place of icons, maintained images of the Emperor and demanded their veneration, and reasserted the primacy of the veneration of the Cross. Constantine felt challenged not by images or their veneration generally, but by the particular claim of icons to adequately represent Christ and his saints - and not simply to represent them, but to make them mystically present to us.

The first period of iconoclasm came to an end in 787 at the second Council of Nicea. The Council was called by the Empress Irene who ruled as Regent for her young son. It condemned the 754 Council and solemnly proclaimed the orthodoxy of icons and their veneration. "We preserve all the traditions of the Church," wrote the Fathers of the Council,

which for our sake have been decreed in written and unwritten form, without introducing an innovation. One of these traditions is the making of iconographic representations - being in accordance with the narrative of the proclamation of the gospel - for the purpose of ascertaining the incarnation of God the Word, which was real, not imaginary, and for being of an equal benefit to us as the gospel narrative. For those which point mutually to each other undoubtedly mutually signify each other.

But the Council did not adequately formulate a theological response to the claims of the iconoclasts. After an uneasy peace, iconoclasm was officially revived in 813 under Emperor Leo V, and the work of justifying the icon theologically fell to iconophiles such as Patriarch St. Nicephoras and St. Theodore the Studite. They were responsible for filling out theologically what the Council at Nicea had defined dogmatically. It is to their justification of the icon that I wish to turn in the remainder of this paper. The real work defeating the iconoclasm was done by the theologians of the 8th and 9th centuries who produced an orthodox, christological justification of the icon of Christ.

The Iconophile's Theology of the Icon:

As many scholars have noted, the iconoclasm offered the Church its first opportunity to formulate a positive account of Christian art. Unlike the Early Church's declarations against non-Christian art, the iconoclasm obliged the medieval Church to produce an apologia for its own use of images. In the wake of Emperor Constantine's sophisticated theological rejection of icons, enshrined in the proceedings of the 754 Council, the iconophiles needed to produce a well-articulated defence of religious images founded on orthodox Christology. Though the 787 Council of Nicea overturned the iconoclastic decrees of Constantine's Council, its definitions were rejected at the 815 Council during the second phase of the iconoclasm. By the early decades of the ninth century, iconoclasm was again the official Ecclesiastical and Imperial policy - but without a consistent application. For example, it was argued in the ninth century, in an attempt to appease both the iconophiles and the iconoclasts, that icons be permitted as pedagogical aids to the faithful, reminding them of the great events of biblical history. The condition was that they not be venerated. This proposal was soundly rejected by the iconophiles. Why? Because for the iconophiles, icons weren't simply reminders of biblical history, but were signs of the incarnation itself, essential to the faith and deserving veneration. You may have noted the curious claim made in the fragment of Nicea's conciliar definition quoted above. According to the iconophiles, the icon doesn't simply serve the gospel narrative, as the iconoclasts assume when they make religious images purely instructive. Rather, gospel and icon mutually affirm one another, both articulating the dogmatic truth of the incarnation.

Though no doubt many of us are sympathetic to the ways in which Christian art (architecture, music, painting, statuary etc.) can elevate the prayerful soul and are also aware of the pedagogic use of Christian images to teach the faith, it is perhaps difficult for us to understand the insistence with which the iconophiles defended, often with their lives, the veneration of the icon. Even at the time of the iconoclasm the reasons for this were often misunderstood by the western Church. The theologians of Charlemagne's court in western Europe at the end of the eighth century rejected the iconophiles' dogmatic defence of the veneration of icons. They also rejected radical iconoclasm. Instead, they argued in favour of the purely pedagogic role of Christian iconography. "In the basilica we permit images of the saints," they wrote in the Libri Carolini (circa 792), "not for worship but as reminders of past events and as adornment of the walls." But the iconophile defence of images demanded more than this. It was an attempt to produce a theology of religious iconography in terms of the dogmatic truths of the faith - to show why images are not only permissible but essential, and to teach their proper devotional use.

The iconoclastic controversy is essentially a contest over the meaning of orthodox christology. At the heart of the icon's importance to the Church is its visible affirmation of christology defined at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. The Council's definition reads:

Therefore, following the holy fathers, we all with one accord teach men to acknowledge one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, at once complete in Godhead and complete in manhood, truly God and truly man, consisting also of a reasonable soul and body; of one substance with the Father as regards his Godhead, and at the same time of one substance with us as regards his manhood; like us in all respects, apart from sin; as regards his Godhead, begotten of the Father before the ages, but yet as regards his manhood begotten, for us men and for our salvation, of Mary the Virgin, God-Bearer; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, recognized IN TWO NATURES, WITHOUT CONFUSION, WITHOUT CHANGE, WITHOUT DIVISION, WITHOUT SEPARATION; the distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the union, but rather the characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming together to form one person and subsistence, not as parted or separated into two persons, but one and the same Son and Only-begotten God the Word, Lord Jesus Christ...

Strikingly, both the iconophiles and the iconoclasts argued that their positions were supported by this definition. Constantine's iconoclastic theology argued that, if Christ has two natures, human and divine, only one of those natures - the human - can be represented in images. But to do this is to divide the natures that the definition says are united. Therefore, images of Christ must be condemned, according to the iconoclasts, as heretical. Moreover, against the veneration of icons, the iconoclasts argued that the iconophiles were paying honour to created materials and thus guilty of idolatry. These are powerful arguments, and perhaps strike us as intuitively true.

But the iconophiles responded with a much more attentive and subtle reading of the Chalcedonian definition. Represented in the icon, they argued, is neither the divine nor the human nature of Christ, but his Person, or hypostasis. The iconoclasts' claim that Christ's divine nature cannot be captured in an image of his human form, misunderstood the very category by which his divine and human natures are united in the single person of Christ. As the definition reads, each nature is preserved and comes together "to form one person". According to the iconophiles, the icon expresses this unity of Christ's personality. Neither of his natures are represented there, but rather their unity in his person.

After clarifying the theology of Christ's person, the iconophiles' argument addresses the significance of his appearance in the flesh. Drawing on the theology of the Chalcedonian definition as well as on more recent theological commentaries and ancient philosophical categories, the iconophiles argue that Christ's real appearance in the flesh implies the real possibility of representing him. To say that he cannot be represented, is to say that he did not really appear, or that his flesh is simply an illusion. By describing Christ's physical appearance, the icon painter confirms the reality of his appearance in the flesh. As Leonid Ouspensky writes,

...if the very existence of the icon is based on the incarnation... this incarnation, in turn, is confirmed and proven by the image. In other words, the icon is a proof that the divine incarnation was not an illusion. This is why, in the eyes of the Church, the attack on the icon of Christ is an attack on His incarnation and on the whole economy of our salvation. This is why, in defending sacred images, the Church was not only defending their didactic role or their aesthetic aspect, but the very basis of the Christian faith.

On the basis of this argument, the iconophiles were able to argue that to "reject the icon is to reject the incarnation", and that to dishonour the icon of Christ is to dishonour Christ himself. "For our iconophiles," writes Kenneth Parry, "the anthropomorphic image of Christ is not just a testimony to the incarnation but a natural extension of it. It is no exaggeration to say that for them, unless there are images of Christ, the incarnation might as well not have taken place." The icon becomes a visible and necessary affirmation of Christ's historical and continuing incarnation.

But why are these images worthy of veneration?

According to the iconophiles, Christ appears in his icon to be venerated. A connection exists between the icon and the person it represents, but a connection such that the veneration shown to the icon passes from it to its original. This connection is based on the likeness or resemblance between the two. There can be no image without the prototype, and the identity between image and prototype is a real and profound connection worthy of honour. Though different in essence, there is an "identity of likeness" between the icon and Christ which means that the one can be venerated in the other. As the 787 Council declares:

...one may render [to icons] the veneration of honour: not the true worship of our faith, which is due only to the divine nature, but the same kind of veneration as is offered to the form of the precious and life-giving cross, to the holy gospels, and to the other holy dedicated items. Also [we declare] that one may honour these by bringing to them incense and light, as was the pious custom of the early [Christians]; for "the honour to the icon is conveyed to the prototype.' Thus, he who venerates the icon venerates the hypostasis of the person venerated on it.

Thus the icon is a means by which we are offered the opportunity to honour Christ and his saints and they are visible instantiations of their real historical presence on earth and abiding presence in heaven. But more than this, it is through showing honour to the icon that we are raised to the worship of the Triune God. This cannot happen if we are convinced that the icon stands over against us as an object for our devotional "use". Contemporary discussions of icons often assume that they are simply objects for our meditation - but this is akin to the moderate iconoclastic position that only sees icons as instructive. Rather, icons, though our creations, are mysteriously prior to us and transcend us. It isn't so much we who meet Christ in the icon, but Christ meets us. This is the logic of the image, its radical claim of relation to a prototype by which the image, the icon, makes present Jesus or his saint who calls to us. The icon, though silent, speaks to us, soliciting our veneration, humbling us and preparing us, when seen with the eyes of faith, for our own deification.

For the iconoclast, icons are at best historical illustrations, and are essentially painted pictures. But this misses the very heart of orthodox iconography which maintains that icons testify to the ongoing reality of the events of Christ's life - he is perpetually incarnated, for example, perpetually teaching from the Mount, perpetually interceding for us.

This is a difficult argument, perhaps, and one that needs a more elaborate explanation than present here. But the fundamental principle of the iconophile's position is beautifully captured by Christoph Schönborn. In an attempt to outline simply and pastorally the significance of the iconophile response to the iconoclastic declarations of Emperor Constantine'e 754 Council, he writes:

From the moment that "the Word was made flesh' (John 1.14), from the moment that Jesus of Nazareth is none other than the Son of God made man, to see his human face is to see himself, to see him, the Word made flesh. That face is the human face of God, and to destroy the image which makes us see that face is to reject the ineffable mystery of that face. And here is the solution to the dilemma formulated by Constantine V and the Council of 754: it is sufficient to see, with a loving gaze, eye to eye, the image of that face, to realize that the icon does not represent either the human nature or the divine nature, but the divino-human person of Christ. The image makes it possible to meet that person. The question of icons is so important because the mystery which these images represent is the most important thing there is: the human Face of God.

The icon is more than an instructive or decorative image. It is a sign of the object of all our earthly pilgrimmages: the sacred face of God. Iconophile theology saves this understanding of religious images for us.

Conclusion:

I have attempted to show in this paper that the icon is intimately connected with the incarnation of Christ, and that the icon is worthy of veneration because it shares with Christ the likeness of his person: when we honour the image, the honour passes to Jesus. In this sense, the icon is indeed a window to heaven, through which Christ and his saints meet us.

I wish to emphasize in conclusion simply two things. Firstly, if the iconoclasm teaches us anything, it teaches us that the Church's adoption or rejection of particular religious images carries with it real doctrinal and devotional consequences. The entirety of this conference is devoted to the question of religious iconography, and we will continue to see, no doubt, the extent to which aesthetic choices are indicative of and profoundly effect both the law of prayer and the law of belief. We live in a time of rapid liturgical change and a time in which the traditions of Christian and non-Christian iconography, theology and prayer are more readily accessible than ever. The history of the iconoclasm reminds us of the need to think deeply the ramifications of liturgical change, and to thoughtfully engage with the religious traditions we so easily access. This includes asking real questions about the theology of icons, for example, when they begin to appear in both our Churches and homes. Icons are not unlike the Prayer Book - they need to be lived with thoughtfully and for a long time in order to begin to form the soul.

Secondly, I want to emphasize the significance of icons for us, Christians who for the most part do not use icons in our devotional and liturgical lives. Icons make available to the Church the glorious image of the transfigured saints that have gone before us, showing us the vision of holiness to which we are called. But as well as this, the icon of Christ is a perpetual revelation. It reminds us not only of the incarnation two thousand years ago, but of our continuing pilgrimage towards Christ, and of his abiding presence, of which St. Paul writes in his second epistle to the Corinthians:

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit... For it is the God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness,' who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

The iconoclastic controversy is one moment in the centuries long pilgrimage of the Church. But it embodies in a profound vision the desire of all Christian souls to see the face of God. Think of Moses and Elijah, even of St. Thomas. "Show me thy face, O Lord," writes the Psalmist, "Thy face Lord will I seek." The icon of Christ is one revelation of that yearned for vision, and as such it is an aid to our own transfiguration. It was of the icon of Christ that St. John Damascus wrote:

I saw the human image of God and my soul was saved.