Empress Theodora
Christian art flourished in the fifth, sixth, and seventh
centuries, resulting in splendid churches, mosaics, and Gospel illuminations in
the east and west. Christians in the west generally embraced this renaissance
in church art, but beginning in the eight century Greek theologians, clergy,
and laity initiated the "iconoclast controversy" in protest against visual representations
of Christ and the saints. The iconoclasts claimed that Christ destroyed the
power of paganism and idolatry, eliminating the need for idols. Christians who
supported the use of images, called "iconodules" ("image-honorers") argued that Jesus Christ was the perfect physical image
of God and that images of wood and stone merely echoed the incarnation. Both sides
debated the theology underpinning their arguments for over a century, with
emperors and high-ranking clergy alternating between positions. On the first Sunday
of Lent in 843 empress Theodora, wife of Theophilus, ended the iconoclast controversy by staging a
large procession in Constantinople and declaring the restoration of icons, marking the triumph of the images in east and west.
Henry Chadwick. The Early Church. Revised Edition. New York, NY: Penguin Books. Pp 283-284
