Christian History Home > Issue 54 > Kissers and Smashers
Kissers and Smashers
Why the Orthodox killed one another over icons.
Bradley Nassif | posted 4/01/1997 12:00AM
For many in the West today, Orthodox devotion to icons seems odd, especially the practice of kissing them. And when we learn that for a hundred-plus years in the early Middle Ages arguments raged over pictures of Jesus, causing one of the greatest political, cultural and religious upheavals in Christian History—well, we just don't understand it.
What is it about icons that created such a stir, and what do they represent to the Orthodox?
A little bloody history
By the 700s, icons were a regular feature of Orthodox spiritual life all over the Byzantine Empire. And it was about that time that a movement against icons emerged. Iconoclasm (the movement to "smash icons") started from within the church itself. A few iconoclastic bishops in Asia Minor (modern Turkey) believed the Bible, particularly Exodus 20:4, forbade such images:
"You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship ...
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