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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?

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 them . …"

Byzantine Emperor Leo III (reigned 717-741), convinced by such reasoning, tried at first to persuade his subjects to abandon icons. A dramatic act of nature reinforced his campaign: a violent underwater volcano suddenly erupted in the Aegean Sea; tidal waves surged over land, and a cloud of volcanic ash darkened the sky. The entire city of Constantinople was shaken. Leo interpreted it as a sign from heaven: the empire was in grave danger of incurring the divine wrath. So he preached a series of sermons against the use of icons.

In 726 (or 731; the date is uncertain), Leo stepped up the campaign. He ordered his soldiers to go to the palace gate called Chalke and destroy the icon of Christ painted over the entrance archway. When the soldiers began smashing the image, a group of elderly women kicked the ladder out from underneath the soldiers' feet. The incident triggered riots, and several women became the first martyrs to iconoclasm.

The most vigorous opponent of icons in the eighth and ninth centuries was Emperor Leo's son and successor, the brilliant Constantine V. Constantine was the person most responsible for developing the arguments used against icons.

In 754 he called the Council of Hieria, and the 338 bishops assembled from throughout the empire, condemned the making and venerating of icons. The deck, however, had been stacked: Constantine had guided into the assembly only those bishops who supported his views. Nonetheless, the bishops declared their assembly the "Seventh Ecumenical Council."

After the council, a large-scale war broke out against the supporters of icons. Monks, icons' staunchest defenders, felt the heat of persecution the most. Thousands were exiled, tortured, or martyred. In 766 Constantine paraded a group of monks holding hands with their sister nuns (a scandalous display) through the Hippodrome. Between 762 and 775, countless Christians suffered greatly, and the period became known as the "decade of blood."

Eventually the tide turned. In 787 Empress Irene (reigned 780-802), a staunch supporter of icon veneration, convened what would later be recognized as the rightful Seventh Ecumenical Council. The council affirmed that icons, though they may not be worshiped, may be honored.

A new attack on icons was made under Leo V the Armenian in 815 and continued until 843, when icons were again reinstated once and for all by Empress Theodora on the First Sunday of Lent, a day still celebrated annually as the Feast of the Triumph of Orthodoxy.

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