Onset of Byzantine Iconoclasm under Leo III

Date

c. 726–730 CE

Category

Religion & ideology

Region

Byzantium (Constantinople)

Era

Post-Classical / Medieval

Significance

Around 726 the emperor Leo III the Isaurian began to turn imperial policy against the veneration of religious images, and by 730 he had formally prohibited the use of icons, inaugurating the first phase of Byzantine Iconoclasm.

Contemporaries linked the move to a sense of divine displeasure after military disasters and a dramatic submarine volcanic eruption in the Aegean, which some read as God's judgment on image-worship as idolatry. The reported removal of the icon of Christ from the Chalke Gate of the Great Palace became a symbol of the new policy. Iconoclasm provoked fierce resistance from monks, many laypeople and much of the western Church under the popes, deepening the rift between Constantinople and Rome and contributing to the papacy's turn toward the Franks. The controversy convulsed Byzantine society for over a century, through condemnation at the Second Council of Nicaea in 787, a renewed iconoclast period, and final restoration of icons in 843. It profoundly shaped Orthodox theology of images and the relationship between church and state.

Empires active in c. 726–730 CE

• Umayyad Caliphate
  661 CE – 750 CE
• Tang Dynasty
  618 CE – 907 CE
• Byzantine Empire
  330 CE – 1453 CE
• Kanem-Bornu Empire
  700 CE – 1900 CE
• Tibetan Empire
  618 CE – 842 CE
• Khazar Khaganate
  650 CE – 969 CE

Related religion & ideology events

• Adi Shankara and the Revival of Advaita Vedanta
  c. 700-750 CE
• The Hijra: Muhammad's migration to Medina
  622 CE
• Muhammad's first revelation in the Cave of Hira
  c. 610 CE
• Battle of Karbala and the Sunni–Shia divide
  10 October 680 CE
• Founding of Samye Monastery establishes Buddhism in Tibet
  c. 779 CE
• Official Introduction of Buddhism to Japan
  552 CE (traditional date; 538 CE in some sources)

Further reading

A Little History of Religion

The wider story

A Little History of Religion

Richard Holloway

Accessible sweep of humanity's faiths and belief systems from prehistory to the present.

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