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Here we are considering the common attitudes and practices of the Christians in this period. These practices of honoring the heroes of the faith, which we have noted beginning to develop in alarming proportions in the fourth century now continues. It will irrupt eventually in the eighth century in a major controversy about the role and function of portrait art in Christian worship. Here we are concerned to trace the continued progress toward that outcome. The basic issue behind the iconoclastic controversy is analogous to the issue behind the Christological controversies. In the Christological controversies the issue was to discern and define the relationship between the divine and the human in Christ. At the root of the Iconoclastic controversy was the issue of distinguishing and defining the relationship between things divine and things mundane in this world. In a word, who and what is holy and worthy of reverence and worship?
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The leaders of the church are set apart from the mundane by consecration or ordination; hence they are holy and should be reverenced at the least. Popular tradition frequently attributed miracles to them and to their tombs or relics. Church buildings are set apart by dedication; they are holy and should be treated with reverence and respect. Church buildings may be made more holy by containing the tombs of holy men.
The martyrs and heroes of the faith from earlier centuries set themselves apart by their deeds; the title "holy one", i.e., saint, was more and more being reserved to them although the New Testament applies that term to all believers. The holiness of the saints was further supported by the miracles reported as taking place in connection with the saint's tomb, relics, symbols or picture. The term "picture" in this case translates the Greek, iconos. Certainly, these "saints" deserve similar reverence and respect as the clergy. Just as the martyrs of earlier centuries became holy by his selfless sacrifice, so also monks who now sacrifice the normal routines of everyday life seem likewise to gain holiness. Both the secluded hermit monk and the ascetic who lived an isolated but very visible life on top of a stone pillar beside a busy road seemed equally deserving of reverence, if not even worship.
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By the beginning of the seventh century, many of the cities of the Empire had one or more local saints (or their tombs, relics or icons) who were revered as intercessors and protectors. Examples include Saint Demetrius of Thessalonika, the miracle working Christ-icon of Edessa in Syria, and the famous icon of Mary, known as the hodegetria, that saved the city of Constantinople, many believed, from the Avars.
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From the sixth century both the church and the imperial government encouraged the development of both Christian icon making and the honoring of monastic holy men. They did not realize that the uncontrolled multiplying of icons and holy men would tempt the people to confine their Christian devotion to local shrines and figures. Many ordinary Christians failed to distinguish between the holy object or person and the spiritual reality it/he/she symbolized. These, unfortunately, sometimes relapsed into a kind of idolatry.
In pagan Rome icons of the dead emperors were employed in the worship of the divi imperatores. Even the icon of the living Emperor was displayed and revered as if the Emperor himself were present. Special agents of the Emperor were also given royal treatment. Even after the emperors became Christians, the imperial icon, the image of the living emperor, continued to be seen in the army camps, courthouses and prominent places in the major cities. Constantine and his successors had the habit of erecting huge statues of themselves at Constantinople. The emperor's image also appeared on coinage as a mark of authenticity.
Beginning with Justinian I's (525-565) huge statue of Christ erected above the main gate of the imperial palace in Constantinople where previous emperors had placed their own statues, icons of Christ or Mary began to be substituted for the emperor's icon in many other contexts. For example, the Christ icon replaced the image of the emperor on the imperial coinage of Justinian II (685-695 & 705-711).
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The Paulicians were a group recognized by the church later as Christian heretics. However, their origins cast serious doubts on that attribution. This particular group of quasi-Christians developed in the tension-filled no-man's land between the Arab and Byzantine worlds in what is today southeastern Turkey. Modern scholars trace their roots to back to the middle of the seventh century. The major historical source, a monk named Peter living and writing in Sicily, gives more than one explanation of their origin. Peter's knowledge was based on his official investigation associated with his diplomatic mission to the Paulicians between 867 and 871, evidently before he entered monastic life and settled in Sicily.
According to one account the founder was Paul, the son of Kalliniké, a lady who lived in Samosata early in the seventh century. Kalliniké was known to be a Manichaean, hence a condemned heretic. The city of Samosata was on the western bank of the Euphrates River and had at one time ruled over its surrounding territory. By the middle of the seventh century the southern part of that territory was in Muslim Syria. The northwestern part was under Byzantine control and the northeastern part was under Armenian control until about 655 when Armenia surrendered to the Muslims. Paul left Samosata and went northward into the Armenian region of Pontus where he established a church. Nerses III, head of the Armenian Church (ca. 641-661), denounced the movement and forced the followers of Paul to flee into Byzantine Pontus and settle somewhere between Nicopolis and Neocaesarea at a place called Phanaroea.
Again Peter reports that in the reign of Byzantine Emperor Constans II (641-668) an Armenian named Constantine was preaching the heresy in Armenian Samosata. Peter suggests that this Constantine is considered the true founder. He does not comment on whether he came from Armenian Pontus, nor does he explain why he suddenly changed his name to Sylvanus and fled to Cibossa in Byzantine Samosata where he labored as a "church planter" for 27 years. His career was cut short by the arrival of a commissioned Byzantine official named Simeon who arrested Constantine/Sylvanus and executed him as a Manichaean. Ironically, Simeon was himself subsequently converted to the group's beliefs, took the name Titus and led the group in Byzantine Samosata for three years. Peter (alone) reported the existence of a decree issued by Emperor Justinian II, about 687, condemning to death by fire all those who refused to recant their Manichaean heresy. Simeon was thus executed and his flock scattered. Among those surviving was a certain Armenian named Paul together with his two sons Gegnesius and Theodore. Gegnesius took the name Timothy and was appointed by Paul as his successor. Peter reports that the community at this point decided to put off the name Manichaean and adopt the name Paulicians.
Modern scholarship concludes that Paul the father of Gegnesius was the true founder, not Paul the son of Kalliniké--if, indeed, those are different individuals. There are both chronological, geographical and contextual problems. Many consider the execution of Constantine/Sylvanus about 685 the most reliable aspect of Peter's account. The Paulicians represented yet another outbreak of the radical dualism of the sort seen repeatedly in Asia Minor since the penetration of Persian Zoroastrianism there in fifth century BC.
Its influence has been noted in second century gnosticism, again in the appearance and spread by the Manichaean movement in the third century, and the Massalian movement of the fourth and fifth centuries. In this view two opposing principles dominate the universe. The principle of evil (darkness) created the material world of a mixture of good and evil. The principle of good (light) will one day destroy the evil and separate from it. Man is a mixture of both evil and good; the soul of man is good, but the evil flesh has it entrapped. Man enters into the struggle against evil by seeking to weaken and eventually destroy the power of the evil flesh and achieve release (salvation) for their souls.
The Paulician expression of this dualism is seen in their rejection of the Old Testament as the work of a demon that is evil, cruel and unjust. They rejected as blasphemy the assertion that Christ took on human flesh; he only appeared to be human. His death on the cross was an illusion, so the elements of the Lord's Supper were mere figurative symbols of his teachings. Icons and the material relics of the saints are equally abhorrent as a celebration of the evil principle. The visible church with its clergy has little more than social role to play in the soul's search for salvation, yet the Paulicians conformed selectively to its customs and traditions, giving them an altogether unorthodox interpretation. In any case, we will meet the Paulicians at several instances in the following discussion of the Iconoclastic controversy in the eighth and ninth centuries. Their influence in later centuries seems somehow related to the Bogomils discussed in Lecture/Essay Ten.
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Following the death of Emperor Justinian II (705-711), a Roman General of Armenian background, Philippicus, usurped the Emperor's position for three years (711-713), long enough to declare that Monothelitism was the official position of the Byzantine church. Both Bulgaria and the Umayyads took advantage of the confusion at Constantinople to make inroads. Anastasius II, a former bureau chief in the palace was made Emperor in 713 by the troops from the Opsikion militarized province near Constantinople. After more than a year of preparing for an immanent Arab naval onslaught on Constantinople Anastasius II was forced to resign in 715 and become a monk after struggling for six months with the rebellious (non-naval) troops from the Opsikion militarized province. The rebels had recruited a tax collector from their region whom they forced to accept the office of Emperor as Theodore III, 715-717. Meanwhile, the Arabs built up their forces and pushed into what is now central Turkey.
A former governor general of a military region in central Turkey that had just been overrun by the advancing Arab forces, Leo III, came to Constantinople and defended the city against the last of the Arab sieges on the city in 717 and 718. It has become customary for historians to assert dramatically that had he been unsuccessful the onslaught of Arab advance would surely have swept across all of Europe. In that case you would be reading this in Arabic instead of English and you would worship the Muslim god on Friday instead of the Christian God on Sunday. While Leo III survived the Arab onslaught on Constantinople, he was unable to do anything that might have slowed the Bulgars in the immigration into the lower Danube region where they would be an equally serious problem his descendants in the Syrian dynasty would have to deal with. Leo III's other claim to considerable fame is based on his inauguration of the policy of Iconoclasm in 726.
Considering the background of the reaction against icons it should also be noted that Caliph Yazid II (720-724) had issued decrees at Damascus about 722 calling for the removal and destruction of all painted pictures and representations from both churches and public buildings throughout Syria. However, Hisham (724-743), Yazid II's successor, did allow the Christians to restore icons in their buildings. It should also be noted that neither the Monophysite Christians nor the Manichaean heretics, i.e. the Paulicians, in north Syria favored the use of icons. Gegnesius/Timothy, leader of the Paulicians is reported to have visited in Constantinople and to have received assurances of some sort from Emperor Leo III before the Emperor took action.
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Although it cannot be considered certain, the action of Emperor Leo III may have stemmed from a sense of national guilt. Perhaps the humiliating military defeats of the previous century together with a calamitous earthquake early in his reign were intended to bring "God's new chosen people" to their senses. In the Old Testament such suffering was brought on by God because of the idolatry of the "chosen people". In any case, in central Turkey where Leo had served as governor before becoming emperor, several prominent bishops had already begun preaching against the utilization of icons. Moreover, there is little doubt that word from Christians in the Arab controlled areas in eastern Turkey where Leo had grown up reported on the ridicule which the Muslim's heaped on the Christians for being "idolatrous."
When Leo III began to take actions against the use of icons in AD 726, the popular response in many areas was vigorously negative. The official who was sent to replace with a cross the statue of Christ over the gate of the palace was attacked and murdered by the angry mob. Leo forced the current patriarch of Constantinople to resign to make room for a new one that favored restricting the employment of icons. Then they erected fences around some of the icons to prevent physical contact by the worshipers; others were raised out of reach. In any case attempting to remove the icons from physical contact only worked to demonstrate how attached people were to these paintings and statues. Then in 730 Leo III issued an edict calling for the removal or destruction of all religious icons in public places and churches. This edict gave rise to the Latinized terms "iconoclasm" and "iconoclastic" which were based directly on the Greek vocabulary, eikôn, "image", klastos, "broken in pieces". The verb klaô means "to break".
Those supporting the use of icons consisted largely of monks and ascetics, together with their uneducated and superstitious followers from the general population. Although not all monks were in favor of icons, some monasteries manufactured and sold icons as a means of economic support. Subsequent to the 730 edict those supporting the use of icons were persecuted vigorously. They were excommunicated, mutilated and banished into exile.
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When the bishop of Rome dared to condemn these actions. Leo III retaliated by removing Sicily, southern Italy and the entire western part of the Balkans and Greece from the Patriarchate of Rome, c. 733. Henceforth, those regions would be in the Patriarchate of Constantinople. These actions poisoned relations between the Roman Bishop of the emperor, and probably contributed to driving the Bishop to seek alliances with western barbarians.
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Constantine V, son of Leo III, was an aggressive emperor who took advantage of the temporary internal confusion among the Muslim's due to the fall of the Ummayad dynasty and thus continued to experience victory against the Muslim forces. He drove them back out of Turkey into Syria by 745. He also destroyed their Mediterranean fleet and conquered Cyprus from them the following year. Then Constantine V used the relaxation of Arab pressure to turn his attention to the long unattended Bulgarian threat. He campaigned nine times against the Bulgars between 755 and 764.
Meanwhile, he refused to send aid to Italy against the Lombards at the request both of the Exarch of Ravenna and of the Bishop of Rome.
During his last ten years Constantine V vigorously enforced iconoclastic policy his father had inaugurated. In order to strengthen his position against popular uprisings at Constantinople he forced the migration and resettlement in 746 and 755 of former Muslim subjects from Syria and Armenia. Most of these were identifiable as Paulicians (i.e. a Manichaean /Christian sect) and consequently supporters of iconoclasm. He settled them in Thrace, the province north and west of Constantinople along the Bulgarian frontier. Then he assembled a synod of 338 bishops at Constantinople in 754, who affirmed his desire to proscribe all use of icons as idolatry. It called for all remaining icons to be destroyed. Moreover, Constantine V deliberately destroyed the reputation and influence of monks in general, and the popular, highly venerated ascetics in particular, who stubbornly supported the use of icons. It has been estimated that 50,000 monks fled from the region immediately surrounding Constantinople to escape persecution and humiliation. The Emperor also attempted to limit the cult of saint-worship by destroying relics and condemning prayers made to the saints.
Those opposed to icons wanted to replace them with the traditional Christian symbols of the cross, the book (Bible), and the elements of the Lord's Supper. These objects alone should be considered holy. Beyond this, only ordained clergy and dedicated buildings possessed a kind of holiness. Constantine V argued that the true icon of Christ consisted of the elements of the Lord's Supper. Since it was claimed that a proper icon must consist of the same substance as what it stands for Constantine evidently believed that the consecrated bread and wine were identical in substance with the flesh and blood of the divine and human Christ.
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But a reasoned and persuasive defense of icon usage suddenly appeared from a distant source. John Mansour (about 730-760), in a monastery far away in Arab ruled Palestine, formulated the ideas and arguments that would eventually justify the existence and use of religious icons. Mansour, better known as John of Damascus (his birthplace) was the greatest Orthodox theologian of the eighth century. He is recognized today by the Orthodox churches as the last of the great teachers of the early church, the so-called "Fathers".
John explained that an image was never of the same substance as its original, but merely imitated it. An icon's only significance is as a copy and reminder of the original. His argument was based on Plato's notion that everything we sense in this world is really an imitation of the eternal, original "form", which can be known only by the soul in the non-material world.
To deny, as the iconoclasts did, that any true icon could depict Christ was, in effect, to deny the possibility of the incarnation. Although John would agree that it was wrong to worship an icon, the presence of an icon of Christ could instruct and assist the believer in the worship of the true Christ. Icons should be honored and venerated in much the same way as the Bible, or the symbol of the cross. But the pictures of Christ, Mary, the apostles, the saints or even angels were only reminders to help the faithful give proper respect and reverence to those pictured.
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The Syrian Dynasty continued under Leo IV, the Khazar, the son of Constantine V, who continued during his short reign to war effectively against the Arabs, but he was not an energetic iconoclast.
The early death if Leo IV was a crisis for the Dynasty. Constantine VI, his son, was but a child and was dominated by his mother, Irene.
In 785 young Constantine VI publicly abandoned his first wife and bullied his way with the Patriarch Tarasius (784-806) until the latter allowed the priest, Joseph, to perform the ceremony in which he married Theodote. Those more tolerant churchmen who supported Constantine's second marriage became known as the Moechianists (from moicheia, adultery). The Moechian Schism pitted the more tolerant churchmen against the extremists who actively criticized Constantine VI. Theodore, Abbot of the monastery of Studios, and cousin of Theodote, led the extremists! Constantine VI exiled Theodore and his fellow extremists to Thessalonika.
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Emperor Leo IV's widow, Irene, with the assistance of the Patriarchal Bishop of Constantinople, Tarasius, managed to overthrow the iconoclastic policy. The Seventh Ecumenical Council of 350 bishops condemned the whole iconoclastic movement, and adopted the position formulated by John of Damascus. The Council was originally convened in Constantinople in the fall of 786, but supporters of Iconoclasm from the military forces stationed in the Capital blockaded the sessions. This forced the Council to reconvene at Nicaea (Second Council of Nicaea) in the fall of 787. Even so, the final session was held at Constantinople in the presence of Irene and her son, Constantine VI. The canons of 787 repudiated the Council of 754. Moreover, they set forth on the basis of Christian tradition that the cross, icons of Christ, the Virgin Mary, angels, and saints should be devoutly honored or venerated (douleía) with lights, incense and bowing the knee for it is the person represented that is being honored. However, true adoration (aléthiné latreía) belongs to God alone. Nevertheless, strong iconoclastic sentiment remained in Asia Minor and among the professional military class.
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When Pope Adrian I (772-995) urged Charlemagne and the Frankish church to recognize the Council Charlemagne and his advisors had difficulties. The scholarly Spanish trained Theodulf prepared over a nearly three year period a lengthy (85 points) criticism of the Council usually referred to as the libri Carolini, The Carolingian Books. The earlier Council of 754 was repudiated because it declared images were idols. The latter Council of 787 is also to be repudiated because it provided that images may be both honored and adored. This assertion was in error, but the Latin translation received by the Franks was incompetent to convey clearly the distinctions made by the council between honor and adoration. The libri Carolini went on to say that images are to be neither destroyed nor honored, but used to adorn edifices. Honor is due only to the cross of Christ, the Bible, sacred vessels, and the relics of the saints. Pope Adrian I promptly attempted to set the record strait in detail. Nevertheless, Charlemagne's synod at Frankfort in 794 with the consent of the Papal legates, voted to reject the decrees of Nicaea II.
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When Constantine VI began to listen to other advisors Irene had him flogged and thrown in prison in 790. Before the year was out he rebelled against her and put her in prison. After two numbing defeats in battle with the Arabs and the Bulgars in 791 he reinstated his mother as joint ruler. After cutting out the tongues of four of his uncles and blinding another to remove any threat to his royal rights from other members of the Syrian dynasty, he then tricked many of his former supporters into rebelling against him so he could have them executed.
In 797 Irene imprisoned and brutally blinded her son, ordering it done in such a way as to be fatal. She then reigned herself from 797 to 802. Her financial policies were disastrous; her military re-organization pointless and destructive. The Bulgarian threat advanced steadily in Irene's last years. Far away in the west Pope Leo III's action in crowning Charlemagne as Emperor of the Romans in December of 800 may have been a reaction to the absence of a male Emperor. In any case it is known that Charlemagne did officially propose marriage with Irene. Apparently, she agreed but that decision bore no fruit.
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In 802 dissatisfaction with her handling of the Bulgarian threat culminated in a coup d'etat led by the former head of the treasury department. Nicephorus I, forced Irene to enter a convent, and began serious preparation for war against Bulgaria by restoring order out of financial chaos. His measures were tyrannical and oppressive for he was dipping into whatever financial resources existed regardless of customs and privilege.
Nicephorus I's religious policies followed the letter of the Council of 787, but he refused to persecute the iconoclastic Paulicians and recruited many into the army. For the radical iconodules led by the exiled Theodore of Studios the Emperor's actions favoring the Paulicians were disappointing and enough to call down their condemnation. However, the extreme impact of Nicephorus I's financial policies on monasteries and churches was more than enough to draw their active opposition. Emperor Nicephorus named a moderate and intelligent laymen to the Patriarchal bishop's office when Tarasius died in 806. The new Patriarch was also named Nicephorus. The two Nicephoruses cooperated in holding councils in 806 and 809 that reversed several of the actions of the extremists and decreed that the Emperor was not bound by the laws of the church. The extremists who normally insisted on a strict separation of church and state, were pushed to the wall in frustration. They appealed to Bishop Leo III of Rome in defense of church laws, a course without any practical likelihood of result.
The Bulgarian Khanate had emerged as a powerful force after c. 775 with its heartland in the lower Danube valley. Few of its eighth century chiefs are known, but beginning with Khan Krum, c. 807-814, Bulgarian affairs are reported to us in Byzantine sources. The war against the advancing forces of Krum went badly and Emperor Nicephorus I was killed in battle in 811 after loosing Mesembria and Adrianople just a few miles northwest of Constantinople. Krum later had the unfortunate Emperor's skull plated in silver and used it as a drinking bowl. We should also note that during Krum's successful campaign he rounded up and forced the migration of one of the Paulician settlements Emperor Constantine V had founded in Thrace, an estimated ten thousand people, resettling them in a region north of the Danube River. Thus the seeds of Paulicianism were planted in Bulgaria.
Since the Pope had crowned Charlemagne in 800 this powerful Frankish leader had something of a claim on the title "Emperor of the Romans". Disappointed that the possibility of actually adding Constantinople to his realm through marriage with Irene did not materialize, Charlemagne did go to war against the Empire taking Venice in 809 and other Imperial regions in the northwest Balkans.
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Nicephorus' severely wounded son and co-emperor, Stauracius, survived the battle as did the dead Emperor's son-in-law, Michael I, Rhangabe. Patriarch Nicephorus engineered the recognition of Michael as Emperor while Stauracius still had three agonizing months to live. Michael I ruled long enough to conclude a rather humiliating peace with Bulgaria in 813, recall Theodore of Studios from exile, and comply with many of the radical wishes of the extremists. Emperor Michael I also made peace with the Franks in which he grudgingly but officially recognized Charlemagne as "Emperor of the Franks". Beginning in 813 the title of the Emperor at Constantinople became officially "Emperor of the Romans."
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Since the restoring the use of the icons in 787 the prosperity of the state had fallen on hard times. An unprecedented series of military disasters and diplomatic humiliations plagued the state for a quarter century. Michael I Rhangabe abdicated in favor of Leo V, the Armenian, 813-820, the new Emperor. Leo V was convinced that the recent disasters were more than mere coincidence. He deposed the Patriarch Nicephorus (806-815), because of his support of the settlement of 787, and replaced him with Theodotus (815-821). In 815 the new patriarch assembled a synod that reaffirmed the position taken by the anti-icon synod of 754--except that they no longer regarded the icons as idols. Nicephorus and the influential, outspoken abbot of the Studios monastery in Constantinople, Theodore, together with other leaders who favored icons were imprisoned. A few more bishops were deposed from their positions and several monks gained fame by denouncing iconoclasm.
Meanwhile in the west there was continued disunity over this new development. Some churches in the west complied with the new iconoclastic policy. Especially Bishop Claudius of Turin in Italy who ordered all images, pictures, and symbols, including the crucifix, removed from the churches in his diocese. A number of Frankish churchmen including Archbishop Agobard of Lyons, Bishop Jonas of Orleans, and Dungal, a monk at St. Denis in Paris, all opposed Claudius.
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Meanwhile, Krum's son, Ormotag (814-c. 831) ruled the Bulgarians. He founded a new capital city in 821 called Preslav and considerably enlarged his kingdom. He campaigned against the Slavs in western Hungary and the Croatians across the Save River to the south. Ormotag's son, Malamir (c. 831-852), advanced Bulgaria's southwestern frontiers into Serbian and Macedonian areas. The Serbian people in the Balkans who had accepted Christianity in the seventh century (ca. 635) now rejected Christianity and reverted to paganism.
Various other Slavic tribes had scattered and settled the areas stretching from the Baltic Sea coast in the north down to southern Greece. After the last vestige of Avar power in Hungary (around Budapest) was destroyed by the campaigns of Charlemagne in 800, the first autonomous Slavic state called Old Moravia had emerged under the leadership of Mojmir (c. 825) and his successors. It was centered in the region now known as Slovakia and the Czech Republic.
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The Amorian dynasty ruled the Byzantine Empire from 820 to 867. Michael II, The Lisper or Stutterer, the first of the Amorian dynasty, became emperor as the result of a coup. Michael's roots were from western central Asia Minor where his forefathers had been soldier-farmers. Even though Michael II was an iconoclast, he was not a persecutor; hence, the active persecution of those favoring icons became rare. The Byzantine Emperor did send ambassadors to the western Emperor, Louis the Pious, hoping to secure some support for the current iconoclastic policy since icons were no longer considered idols. That had been one of the chief reasons the Frankish synod of Frankfort in 794 had rejected the position of Nicaea II. Louis secured Papal approval before presenting the issue to the synod at Paris in 825. This synod agreed with the action of the Frankfort synod and went on to condemn the Papacy for having accepted the position of the Second Council of Nicaea.
In 821 a rebel named Thomas the Slav rose in rebellion against Michael II. Thomas had an alliance with the Caliph Al-Ma'mun and led an force of some 80,000 from eastern Asia Minor and the Muslim regions beyond. He seems to have met with little resistance as he marched westward across Asia Minor in 821. Large numbers of Paulicians joined his force. Thomas' forces besieged the fortifications at Constantinople for about fifteen months with the typical lack of success. Aside from that unsuccessful rebellion Michael II also had to face the ravages of Arab pirates in the Aegean. Some ten thousand of these Arabs had left Spain in 816, terrorized Alexandria, Egypt, for nearly ten years and then swept into the Aegean, capturing and establishing themselves securely on the Island of Crete. For over 130 years this Arab colony of slave-hunters systematically depopulated the islands of the Aegean and the coastlands of Greece to supply Muslim slave auctions.
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Theophilus, who had been co-emperor with his father Michael II since 821, continued to struggle without success trying to and dislodge the Muslims on Crete and to fend off their incursions in Asia Minor. The loss of Amorion in western Turkey in 838 was the greatest disaster. Although these were very costly ventures Theophilus seems to have had sufficient funds. Some scholars have suspected that he was exploiting the metal resources of the mountains of Armenia. He also engaged in substantial amounts of rebuilding and new construction, another evidence of a renewed prosperity.
Theophilus gained a reputation for justice and efficiency in his administration, but did not begin actively to persecute the icon users until 837. John Grammaticus who became Patriarch of Constantinople in 837, was the last protagonist for iconoclasm. John persuaded the Emperor to decree capital punishment or exile for all who publicly opposed iconoclasm.
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When Emperor Theophilus died his infant son, Michael III, later known as The Drunkard, began his reign under the regency of his widowed mother, Theodora. The first segment of Michael III's reign was to be dominated by Theodora and her chief minister, Theoctistus. Under their domination the iconoclastic policy was abandoned. A synod of churchmen in 843 deposed John Grammaticus, elected Methodius in his place, condemned all the iconoclasts including John Grammaticus--but not Emperor Theophilus--, and confirmed the rulings of the Seventh Council (Nicaea, 787). Henceforth, all Orthodox Churches celebrate the first Sunday in Lent each year as the "Feast of Orthodoxy", to commemorate the end of the iconoclastic controversy.
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Insofar as we can reconstruct the situation at the beginning of the ninth century, the Paulician leader in Asia Minor was a man named Sergius, a Galatian, who like his predecessor took the name of a Biblical personage, the associate of Paul the Apostle, Tychicus. Sergius-Tychicus was a carpenter by trade, but he traveled widely and successfully won many converts from the nominally orthodox ranks. Some think that it is likely that Sergius-Tychicus was the author of the most famous Paulician publication, now lost, called the Key of Truth.
Toward the end of his reign in 813, Michael I launched a major persecution of the iconoclastic Paulicians in the army and in central Asia Minor. This new persecution may have been the result of accusations that the Paulicians in Thrace had been disloyal in not successfully defending the frontier against the Bulgarians. This brief persecution was up-staged by the reversal of the policy toward icons in 815, but Emperor Leo V nevertheless kept some pressure on the Paulicians. Many Paulicians opted to join the force of Thomas the Slav (821-823) which may have reduced their numbers in spite of the less intense persecution under Michael II (820-829) and in the early years of his son Theophilus (829-842).
After Theophilus' widow, Theodora, came to power in 842 the army was enlisted to expedite the annihilation of the Paulicians and the confiscation of their lands by the government. Even though in excess of 100,000 Paulicians were massacred, a sizable remnant escaped eastward into Muslim territory and settled near Tephrike. Under the Muslim patronage a small Paulician state governed by Karbeas emerged. Emperor Michael III and his two uncles, Bardas and Petronius, made decisive moves against the Paulicians and Tephrike and the Muslims of Melitene in 863. Karbeas' son-in-law and successor, Chrysocher, retaliated against the Romans in 867 by campaigning westward across the whole of central and western Turkey as far as Nicaea, Chalcedon and Ephesus, where he used the orthodox cathedral as a stable.
Emperor Basil I was able eventually to defeat the Paulicians and destroy their stronghold at Tephrike in 873. The remaining Paulicians congregated around Thondrak in Armenia under the leadership of the Armenian leader Smbat and managed to survive, but they were no longer an immediate threat to the Byzantines. [Next Paulician reference.]
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