On May 29, 1453, the unthinkable happened: Constantinople, “the most important cultural center of Europe for one thousand years” (Sendler, 1981: 51) and “the queen of cities”—as her inhabitants called her—fell to the Ottomans, as a 21 year-old Sultan Mehmed II, who breached the unbreacheable walls—built by Theodosius II, entered the city. (The walls were breached by the cannons that Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos could not offer to purchase, when he was first approached by the inventor Berthold the Black, who then sold it to the Sultan.)

The Ottomans conquered Constantinople not to destroy but to make her islamic. For example, he adopted the city’s emblem—the star and the crescent moon—as the emblem of his Islamic empire. He took Christian children from homes and educated them in his court to make them administrators and rulers of his provinces. The Ottoman coins had Latin (the Language of the Roman Empire) on one side and Arabic on the other. The conversion of Hagia Sophia into a mosque is another example of the attempt to convert Christendom into an Islamic kingdom. Both ambitions—one for Christendom and the other for Islamic theocracy—failed. Humanism in the cloak of democratic liberalism did not fair any better.

For the Orthodox Church, however, the cataclysmic fall of Constantinople seems to have halted all significant development in liturgy and theology henceforth. It also prevented the Reformation from reaching the city a century later, as the Reformation swept the Europe like a whirlwind. The Reformation that began with Martin Luther’s purported nailing of the 95 theses on the door of Wittenberg Cathedral in 1517 arguably began modernity, while the majority of the Orthodox churches in the great, ancient Christian cities such as churches in Alexandria, Antioch, Damascus, and Jerusalem had already been cloistered within the confines of the Islamic empire since the 7th-century. Constantinople was the last great Christian city to join them in the 15th-century insofar as being subjugated under Islamic rule. The Christian churches, mostly Orthodox, in those cities, however, have been thriving in relative freedom in most cases ever since the 7th-century until the 21st-century. Only recently churches and synagogues in West Asia were bombarded by the Zionist Israelis forces aided by Europe and USA—the descendants of the Crusaders—under the genocidal banner of “the Greater Israel.” In 1930 Constantinople officially became Istanbul: “the City of Islam.”

The Reformation in the 16th-century took on the mantle of iconoclasm that shocked the Orthodox Church to the core in the 8th- and 9th-century. In England, for example, Henry VIII, who read Luther, broke from Rome and in November 1534 crowned himself as the head of the Church of England. As part of the new regime, he ordered eradication of all images of St. Thomas Becket (d. 1170). All paintings and statues of the saint were destroyed, thus institutionalizing and perpetuating iconoclasm that had already begun eight centuries earlier.

Thomas Becket instantly became a saint after he was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral on December 29, 1170, for excommunicating the supports of King Henry II and subsequently refusing to annul the excommunication as demanded by the king’s supports. Thereafter Canterbury became the third most visited pilgrimage site after Rome and Jerusalem, until Henry VIII’s erasure of the saint’s images in 1534 that put a stop to the flow of pilgrims into the city. When Canterbury was a thriving pilgrimage site, Geoffrey Chaucer memorialized the pilgrimage in his novel The Canterbury Tales, writtensometime between 1387 and 1400.

Henry VIII’s iconoclastic edict further emboldened the iconoclastic movement in the continent that ended up destroying visual religious arts, including icons and stained glass windows. Church music, however, seems to have survived, an in Bach (d. 1750) and Handel (d. 1759) for example—although Luther promoted congregational singing, thus popularizing the music for the masses.

If Henry VIII sparked the introduction of Protestantism in England in 1532, Edward VI (1547-1553) actively promoted it. Under Elizabeth I (1558-1603) the country became solidified as a Protestant nation. By this time almost all icons and stained glass windows were destroyed. In 1611 the King James Bible was first printed.

Gutenberg Printing Press

If the invention of gunpowder that breached the Theodocian Walls of Constantinople in 1453 changed the course of history in the east, the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg sometime between 1440 and 1450 altered the course of history in the west, as it promoted the rapid spread of the Reformation a century later.

Combined with the fall of Constantinople, the success of the printing press around the same time put a stop to any significant development in theology and liturgy in the east. Particularly, the text of the Divine Liturgy and, as Gorodenchuk notes, that of the rite of unction, seem to have become frozen due to the success of the printing press. While the printing press enabled mass production and wide dissemination of texts, the success ironically made revising the text more difficult. Due to wide dissemination, updating the already printed texts became a practical challenge. In short, the so called textus receptus (‘the received text’) became solidified and authoritative largely due to the success of the printing press. Once the text was printed in large quantity, it tended to become permanent and thus assumed the air of authority. No significant changes to the text of the Divine Liturgy (the ‘received text’) took place after the 15th-century. Even though there is no officially recognized, unified text of the Divine Liturgy to this day, the so called ‘received text’ of the Divine Liturgy seems to be recognized globally in its current form in the liturgical practice of the Orthodox churches worldwide, except for some minor deviations occurring at the level of local parishes and within national or cultural boundaries.

Should the Text of the Divine Liturgy Be Revised?‍ ‍

Should the text of the Divine Liturgy be revised? I for one say yes. Over the two millennia of its development the Divine Liturgy has become convoluted and confusing, as some parts were added to meet the needs of the time that no longer exist now, and some others were added unnecessarily, in duplication, or in misplacement. Robert F. Taft, SJ, writes of the Liturgy as an overloaded circuit:

[W]hen liturgy has evolved to the point where the circuits are overloaded and something has to be unplugged, what gets suppressed are more often elements of the ancient structure and not some of the newer accretions.

Taft, 2000: 51; italics his.

Taft suggest reforming the Divine Liturgy. For example, he proposes removing the entire litany before the Lord’s Prayer (2004: 428) and restoring the Trisagion after the Creed (2004: 424-25).

In my humble opinion, the Creed should also be removed, except for the baptism—as it was originally recited by cachecumens before baptism—and spare the current long wait-time, during which time (as it used to be) the aer was waved up and down, as the Creed was recited by the faithful (See also on “the curious contemporary practice of removing the aer right after the pax [peace greeting] and waving it over the gifts during the creed” (Taft, 2004: 418, 421-23)).

“In the very beginning,” Taft’s mentor, Juan Mateos, SJ, notes, “… the liturgy started directly with the readings” (2016: 47). The current beginning with the blessing of “the Kingdom of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit….” followed by the Great Litany is a later addition. Why should the Divine Liturgy begin with the litany of petitions?

Mateos suggests (as below) that the Liturgy should begin, as was in the 4th- and 5th-centuries, with the entry of the Word, i.e., the Little Entrance, that symbolizes Christ’s descent into the world. Once the Word has entered the world, Christ’s earthly ministry then begins—with his birth, death, and resurrection—culminating in the self-sacrifice/offering on the altar, where Christ’s Risen Body is lifted up to God the Father in offering, in which we too participate by “receiving” Him (προσδέχομαι, as we sing in the Cherubim Hymn) in communion with Him, as we are divinized by the grace/work of the Holy Spirit.

The essence of the Liturgy, then, consists in these two processions: the descent of the Word (the Little Entrance) and the ascent of the Risen Christ (self) offered as sacrifice (the Great Entrance). The Crucifixion is precisely a lifting up of the Word as offering in God’s glory (because it is fulfiling His will), according to St John. Like Christ, we too offer ourselves as a prayer of the “evening sacrifice,” like a sweet smell of incense that arises to God (Psalm 141.2). Christ’s descent in Incarnation is our ascent with Him to the Father.

The bishop incenses after the Little Entrance… “because that is where the Divine Liturgy once began” (Taft, 2000: 51).

According to Juan Mateos, S.J., the liturgy started with the readings from the Old and New testaments (the Prophets (which disappeared in the 7th-century), the Apostle, and the Gospel)—as once were in the Byzantine Church (Tateos, 2016: 217, 218)—as the bishop literally carried the Gospelbook into the church, symbolizing the entry of the Word into the world. By doing so, Mateos says, the meaning of the liturgy became clear:

… in Christian life, God has the initiative. We must first of all listen to him, be called by him, learn from him, and only then ask for what we need [in the litany of petitions].

[…]

The change of the synaptê’s [litany’s] place to the very beginning of the liturgy, that took place in the twelfth century [however], put the emphasis on human needs rather than on God’s praise [the triporion that preceded the scriptural readings, accompanying the entry of the Gospel].

Mateos, 2016: 47, 48.

The Great Litany, in short, that starts the current Liturgy does not belong there. Mateos states:

[The Great Litany] at the beginning of the Divine Liturgy, before the first antiphon, was formerly placed elsewhere.

In fact, in the documents of the fourth and fifth centuries, the synaptê [litany] was recited after the Gospel, once the catechumens and all the other categories of people not in full communion with the Church had bees dismissed… Later on, probably in the eighth century, the Great Synaptê was transferred to a new place, before the Trisagion, immediately after the Entrance; there it remained in the celebration until the twelfth century. Only after this epoch, at least in Constantinople, was the Great Synaptê put in the place it occupies now, at the beginning of the liturgy.

Mateos, 2016: 46-47.

Placing the Great Litany at the beginning of the Divine Liturgy obscures another important theological meaning: that

The Liturgy of the Word, besides being an instruction, is chiefly a purification, a conversion to God, an opening of the heart for a greater docility to the Spirit.

Mateos, 2016: 48.

After we are purified (or convicted) by the Word of God, we can then proceed to petition for our needs and to offer the divine sacrifice in the Eucharist. Likewise, in the Old Testament, the Levitical sacrifice was preceded by the ritual of purification (Lev 16).

There are currently no less than four litanies said during the Divine Liturgy: first, the Great Litany that begins the current Liturgy (which was placed between the troparia and the Trisagion until the 12th-century); second, the ektenia [the fervent prayers] after the Gospel; third, a repeat of the Great Litany during the pre-communion rites; and fourth, the litany before the Lord’s Prayer (Mateos, 2016: 177). Do we need all these? Some, if not all, interrupt the flow of the liturgy and create confusion. Some belong to the dismissal at the end of the Liturgy (“angel of peace;” petitions for seasonable weather, abundance of the fruits, and peaceful time, for travel, for sick and suffering, etc.).

Both the Trisagion (“Holy God, Holy Almighty, Holy Immortal…”) and the baptismal troparion (“All you baptized into Christ, have been clothes in Christ. Alleluia”) were processional hymns. As such they should be revived as processional (Mateos, 2016: 198; “in the sixth century the Trisagion appears to have been the fixed entrance hymn of the liturgy” (2016: 200)).

There are several other revisions that Juan Mateos suggests in his groundbreaking book The Liturgy of the Word. To cite only one more example, Mateos thinks that ***

Mateos’ disciple Robert F. Taft, S.J., speaks of the superfluousness of the Creed in the Liturgy:

Like so many other later additions to the liturgy, the creed is really superfluous. The eucharistic prayer itself, with its account of salvation history and its repetition of the banquet of the New Covenant, is an entirely sufficient profession of faith.

(Taft, 2004: 404-405).

T‍he Creed was introduced during the Monophysite crisis (Taft, 2004: 426). It is derived from the widely circulated baptisimal formula recited by the cachecumen in various versions. It thus does not belong to the anaphora, where the cachecumens are supposed to exist the church so that the Eucharistic rite may begin.

If the Creed is eliminated, the waving of the aer above the Elements done while the Creed is being recited by the people, would also disappear. See Taft on this “curious contemporary practice of removing the aer right after the pax [peace greeting] and waving it over the gifts during the creed” (2004: 418-423).

According to Taft, the deacon’s shout to close the doors prior to reciting the Creed was not found in Constantinople churches prior to the 12th-century (Taft, 2004: 406). And the practice of drawing the curtain across the Royal Doors at the center of the iconostasis was a medieval monastic practice “unheard of before the 11th century” in Constantinople (2004: 413).

Theodore of Mopsuestia (d. 428) makes no mention of ‘Our Father…’ in his list of the precommunion rite (Taft, 2000: 61). He lists the following: Greeting, Manual act of fraction, consignation, commixture, communution, Litany and collect, Greeting, ‘Let us attend,’ ‘Holy things are for the holy,’ and Communion (Taft, 2000: 61). Cyril of Jerusalem (d. 386) makes the first mention of ‘Our Father’ in the precommunion rite—between the anaphora and the ‘Holy things are for the holy’ (Taft, 2000: 62). Chrysostom had the Lord’s Prayer is his precommunion rite, when he was a presbyter in Antioch (Taft, 2000: 62).

In Hagia Sophia “the pre-iconoclast Byzantine chancel was a barrier that impeded [physical] access, not visibility, just as in the West” (2004: 413). The altar was visible from the nave and was not blocked from the view with curtains drawn. The ciborium above the altar too did not have a curtain: “The majority of miniatures, frescoes, etc. representing early Byzantine sanctuaries show a low parapet-type chancel barrier and a curtainless ciborium” (2004: 414, 413, 415). The tall iconostasis with rows of icons almost reaching the ceiling above the altar was first commission by Prince Andrei Bogoliubsky for the Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir, Russia, who brought the famous icon painter Andrei Rublev from Moscoe to paint the icons therein around 1408.

Is such a wall-like structure blocking the view of the altar necessary for or complemenetary to the rite of the Eucharist that culminates in a communion with God and with the fellow participants?

Taft notes that there are no “Byzantine euchology or diataxis that makes the slightest mention of icons as having any place whatever in the ritual of the mass” (2004: 416). He further writes:

Only in the later printed editions do we find rubrics indicating that the icons on the iconostasis are to be incensed…. Historically [icons] play no role in the ritual of the Byzantine mass and their presence on an iconostasis or elsewhere cannot be deemed essential to the celebration of the liturgy of the Great Church [Hagia Sophia].

Taft, 2004: 416.

Among other changes suggested for revising the current pre-anaphoral rites, Taft lists the following:

• Only the deacons should bear in the gifs during the Great Entrace, while the main celebrant awaits at the Royal Door to receive the gifts.

• The antiphonal chant should be restored and should “not be interrupted by commemorations or a blessing of the people with the gifts.”

• The incensing be limited to the altar and the gifts on the prothesis credence.

• The procession of the Great Entrance should pass through the nave.

• Move the procesis chamber to “near the entrance of the church” so that the Great Entrance may have its full effect, starting from the narthex, passing through the nave, and entering into the sanctuary. This will have the effect of the Little Entrance (of the Word) being “the true introit of the mass.”

• “The litany should be suppressed completely.”

• The kiss of peace be restored at all liturgies, to be exchanged among the congregation as well as among the clergy; and eliminate the diaconal commend: “Let us love one another” for duplication.

• Eliminate “the doors, the doors, let no cachecumens remain.”

• The troparia and other lesser formulae should not be allowed to disturb the flow or obscure the meaning of the rites, as they “clutter up the liturgical text.”

  Taft, 2004: 427-28.

Taft laments in the Conclusion of his great book The Great Entrance:

We have seen the gradual evolution of the Byzantine preanaphoral rites from extreme simplicity to the jumbled complexity of some of the later MSS [text]… According to our reconstruction, the primitive rite of the Great Church [Hagia Sophia] before the 6th century consisted in the preparation of the altar and transfer of gifts from the skeuophysakion [a treasury outside next to the apse] by the deacons, while the presbyters prepared themselves for the anaphora by saying the accessus prayer. The preparation of the altar may have included an incensation, and that of the clergy a lavabo. Then followed the deposition and covering of the gifts, probably with an incensation. The final warning to guard the doors and the kiss of peace concluded the preparation for the anaphora.

Taft, 2004: 426.

Taft finds the following deficiencies or corruption of the current form of the Divine Liturgy:

Further developments in the 7-10th centuries show signs of overburdening the rites with unnecessary elements. The Nemo dignus [“No one is worthy…”] prayer first introduced into BAS [Byzantine Liturgy of St Basil] duplicates an already existing accessus [entrance] prayer. And the litany after the Great Entrance, in scope a litany of dismissal, is completely out of place. It is not only untraditional but also superfluous, coming so soon after the litanies that end the Liturgy of the Word. Furthermore it interrupts and delays the preparation for the anaphora, which is the scope of the rites and prayers of this part of the mass. On the other hand the orate fratres [“Pray, brethren…”] dialogue between concelebrants, in its uncorrupted form, provided a felicitous opening to the accessus rites.

Taft, 2004: 426.

The Iconoclasm Controversy and the Turn to the Historical

In addition to the fall of Constantine, the Reformation, and the invention of the printing press, another significant development had already occurred by the 16th-century: the rise of historical realism and the concomitant ideological shift toward the individual.

The turn toward historical realism had already occurred a few centuries earlier, however, with the Quinisext Council and the ensuing rise of iconoclasm, as we will see shortly. With the turn toward historical realism there occurred the rise of individualism that the Renaissance further promoted. The two ideological strands—historical realism and individualism—enforced each other and solidified the ideology that turned into modernity. Paintings, for example, became realistic and individualized. René Descartes (d. 1650), for another example, declared: “I think, therefore, I am”—as if the whole universe rested on what I thought, what I believed, or what I imagined, as long as the ego was thinking, believing, imagining, doubting, etc.—whether or not the ego did so universally.

Going back a few centuries, in 692 the Quinisext Council in Trullo (attended mostly by bishops from the eastern churches) issued a canon (Canon 82) that ordained that Christ be portrayed henceforth in human form and not symbolically as the Lamb of God (Taft, 1980/1981: 72). It specifically ordered “that henceforth Christ our God must be represented in his human form instead of the ancient lamb…;” and that “[t]he symbol of Christ… must given place to the face of God incarnate, to the historical person of Christ” (Sendler, 1988: 20). A turn to historical realism is evident in these canons.

Shortly thereafter, circa 730, as iconoclasm was burgeoning, the eastern churches implemented the Proskomidi, the preparatory rite before the Divine Liturgy in which the bread and wine are prepared on the prothesis—a table of offering set aside from the altar in the sanctuary.

Shortly after the Quinisext Council (692)—thirty four years later, to be precise—the iconoclast persecutions broke out (726-787) to be followed by another only 28 years later (815-843). The iconoclasm was soundly defeated in the end, as we will see shortly. But the triumph over iconoclasm had its unanticipated consequences, one of which was the turn toward what Taft calls “incarnational realism” (1981: 59). The triumph over iconoclasm both saved and, I submit, threatened the eastern (Orthodox) Church. It saved the Orthodox Church, as icon veneration began to define her identity and worship. But, ironically, it also turned theological focus to historical realism, while turning away from the Alexandrian/Neo-Platonic idealism of obtaining the vision of God (theōsis), which other church fathers until that point in time had proposed to be the ultimate goal of Christian practice centered around the Divine Liturgy and monastic life. Pseudo-Dionysius, for example, believed that theōsis was the goal and design of the two hierarchies: the angelic or heavenly hierarchy and the ecclesiastical or earthly hierarchy. The union with God (theōsis) thereafter became the union with Christ in his incarnational reality. One no longer sought to be transformed to become divine like God, sharing divinity as embodied in Christ. Rather one sought to identify with Jesus of Nazareth in his life, in his ministry, and in his passion—in short, in his incarnational reality. The shift toward historical realism had significant implication for Christian theology and practice, especially in the understanding of the Eucharist.

After the triumph of Orthodoxy—first celebrated in 843—the focus on achieving the vision (theōria) of God diminished in the east, as already said, on one hand; while in the west, curiously, it gained attraction as it is understood to be a private mysticism (i.e., beatitude), as Pseudo-Dionysius was discovered around that time and was appropriated by Aquinas and Bonaventure in the 13th-century in Paris. This development in the west, however, contributed to the rise of individualism that was later celebrated in the Renaissance and thereafter in modernity.

Furthermore, the 16th-century Reformation solidified in theological thinking the permanent focus on the historical reality of Christ’s salvific work on earth. Accordingly, the Resurrection as a historical fact became an object of belief—as in doubting Thomas (Jn 20)—that determined one’s salvation. With the proliferation of confessional statements of faith (e. g., Zwingli’s Sixty-Seven Articles (1523), the Ten Theses of Berne (1528), Augsburg Confession (1530), the First Confession of Basel (1534), Heidelberg Catechism (1563), Westminster Confession of Faith (1646), etc.), the objects of faith became the propositions believed to be true of Christ and his work in history. In short,, whether one believes or not in the historical reality of Christ’s birth, death, and resurrection became the litmus test for verifying the status of one’s salvation, thereby re-enforcing the private, individual nature of salvation. Everything boils down to one’s belief: Sola Fide. Faith became a firmly held belief, despite the protest against such a reduction by the Reformers.

It must be noted in this connection, the Nicene Creed is referred to by the Orthodox Christians as “the symbol of faith” or as Maximos the Confessor puts it “the intellectual kiss of peace” [νοεροῦἀσπασμοῦ, noetic embrace or greeting] (On the Ecclesiastical Mystagogy, 830; 2019: 83). In its nature it is liturgical and public, recited initially at baptism and later as part of the Divine Liturgy prior to receiving the communion, excluded from the catechumens. For the Greeks both baptism and the liturgy are the initiation rites through which the initiate enter into the Mysteries. As an integral part of the sacramental Eucharist, the Creed functions as the initial ‘greeting’ toward or ‘kiss’ or ‘embrace’ of the Divine in union. Maximos describes the union this way:

‍[God] will deify the whole soul and transform it unalterably into himself, so as ‘to be,’ as the all-holy Dionysius the Areopagite says, ‘an image and manifestation of the unseen light, a mirror, pure, bright, untarnished, unspotted, receiving, if one may so, the whole loveliness of the divine goodness and purely enlightening within itself as far as possible the goodness of silence in the inner sanctuaries.

Mystagogy, 875-882; 2019: 85.

The roots of the Reformation/modernity, then, were already firmly implanted in the churches both in the east and west long before Martin Luther had rebelled against the papal Church—the act of Reformation that further solidified historical realism accompanied and re-enforced by the concomitant rise of individualism.

Accordingly, the Cross became the dominant symbol of all Christian symbols. In fact, the Bread and Wine became the symbols or signs that mainly refer to the passion of Christ, as evinced by the implementation of Proskomidi (circa 730) in the east. See also the Eucharist.

Iconoclasm

The icons were saved in the Orthodox Church by the two Empresses: Irene and Theodora. In his book, The Icon, Image of the Invisible: Elements of Theology, Aesthetics and Technique, Egon Sendler offers one of the best summaries of the two iconoclasm controversies—more precisely, the two bitter persecutions of the iconodule by the iconoclast emperors based on the same controversy over the icon veneration.

The iconoclasm did not arise from Judaism. As Sendler notes, the 6th-century synagogue Beth Alpha had “mosaics of the ark of the covenant, the signs of the zodiac, the sacrifice of Isaac, etc.” (1988: 9). The third-century synagogue of Dura-Europos in Mesopotamia contained images of “the stories of Moses, Elijah, Daniel, and other Biblical persons” that could be, as Sendler surmises, “a precursor of Byzantine art” (1988: 9). But Judaism too had an iconoclastic moment, as Sendler further notes: “The systematic rejection of all images was established at the time of the Maccabees when Judaism felt itself threatened by Hellenism” (1988: 8).

In 692 Justinian II convoked a council (known as Quinisext) in the imperial palace. The council was attended by bishops mostly from the east. In this council the importance of the holy cross and its veneration were declared (Canon 73). Canon 100 in particular prohibited “deceiving paints which being exposed to public view corrupt the intelligence by exciting shameful pleasures…” (Sendler, 1988: 20). Furthermore, Canon 82 declared “that henceforth Christ our God must be represented in his human form instead of the ancient lamb” (Id., 20). It further declared: “The symbol of Christ… must given place to the face of God incarnate, to the historical person of Christ” (Id.). The Quinisext Council thus elevated the abstract sign of the cross as an object of veneration, while “the historical person of Christ” is to be depicted in all Christ-icons, as the symbolic image of the Lamb of God is no longer to be produced.

In 721 the caliph Yazid II (who ruled over Alexandria, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Damascus) imposed “very draconian measures in order to eliminate all images from the sanctuaries and homes of the provinces under his authority” (1988: 22). In 725 three bishops from Asia Minor supported the iconoclastic movement: Theodosius of Ephesus, Thomas of Claudiopolis, and Constantine of Nacolia (Id.).

In 730 an underwater volcanic eruption took place near Santorini, north of Crete. Interpreting this as God’s punishment for the idolatrous veneration of images, Emperor Leo III “ordered the destruction of a greatly venerated icon of Christ above the Bronze Gate in Constantinople” (Sendler, 1988: 23). “Immediately there was a riot,” which was suppressed. But realizing the seriousness of this revolt, Leo III invited Patriarch Germanus (d. 740) to the Senate to try to win him over to his side. But Germanus was not intimidated by Leo III. Rather, he stood up in the Senate, “took off his omophorian (the bishop’s stole), and cried out: ‘I am like Jonah; throw me into the sea. I can have no other faith, Oh Emperor, than that of the ecumenical council.’ He then left and went to his ancestral home where he stayed for the rest of his life” (Sendler, 1988: 23).

In 730 Leo III appointed an iconoclast Anastasius as the patriarch, after Germanus was exiled. As result, Sendler writes:

The images in the churches were replaced by flowers, ornaments, birds, and even scenes of the hunt and of the horse races. What is striking in this type of painting is that it was a return to ancient models. In the final analysis, it was an return to paganism which expressed itself in the liturgy as well; preaching was strengthened along with an increase in religious poetry and all sorts of music.

Sendler, 1988: 23.

The persecution of the iconodules began. Sendler writes:

Every citizen had to bring his icons to a public place so they could be burned. Many of the clerics, monastics, and faithful who resisted were condemned, tortured, or killed; others simply left the capital.

Sendler, 1988: 23, 25.

In 731 the newly elected Pope Gregory III, however, rebutted Leo III’s letters sent to him on the controversy point by point, and convoked a synod in Rome in 731, whereby everyone who “opposed the veneration of the holy images and blasphemed against them, destroyed them, or profaned them” (1988: 25) were excommunicated. In retaliation, Leo III “confiscated the patrimonies of St Peter, increased the taxes in Calabria and Sicily, and finally detached the provinces of Illyricum from Roman jurisdiction and gave them to the patriarchate of Constantinople” (Sendler, 1988: 25).

Thus, the seeds of the eventual Great Schism of 1054 had been planted, although Germanus was later canonized by both Orthodox and Catholic Churches.

St John of Damascus (aka St John of Damascene, who belong to the eminent Mansur family holding high offices in the government of the Ommiad caliphs; d. 749; Sendler, 1988: 25) provided the following eloquent defense for veneration of the icons:

In former times God, who is without form or body, could never be depicted. But now when God is seen is the flesh conversing with men, I make an image of the God whom I see. I do not worship matter; I worship the Creator of matter when became matter for my sake, who willed to take His adobe in matter; who worked out my salvation through matter.

On the Divine Images, “Apology I,” St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, Crestwood, NY, 1980, p. 23; as cited in Sendler, 1988: 40.

St John continues:

If we made an image of the invisible God, we would certainly be in error… but we do not do anything of the kind; we do not err, in fact, if we make the image of God incarnate who appeared on earth in the flesh, who in his ineffable goodness, lived with men and assumed the nature, the volume, the form, and the color of the flesh.

On the Divine Images, PG 91, col. 1320; St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, Crestwood, NY, 1980, pp. 52-3; as cited in Sendler, 1988: 25.

In 741 Emperor Leo III died, to be replaced by Constantine V, who ruled between 741 and 775, who was then replaced by Leo IV, who ruled between 775 and 780, who was then replaced by his wife Irene, who became the regent during the childhood of their son Constantine VI between 780 and 790, and who co-ruled with her son between 792 and 797, when she deposed her son (by gouging out his eyes, causing his death shortly thereafter) to become the sole ruler of the empire until 802.

In 754 Leo IV convened the iconoclastic council at Hieria in an imperial palace near Constantinople (Sendler, 1988: 26). The final statement, signed by 388 Byzantine bishops, put forth the following Monophysite argument, as summarized by Sendler:

… if we represent the divinity, we confuse the natures, and we claim to be able to ‘circumscribe’ what cannot be expressed. If we represent the humanity, we divide what must be united in the person of Christ and thus fall into Nestorianism. Through a material image, we would thus deny the hypostatic union which had been defined by the Council of Chalcedon. In addition, matter which is used to make images degrades the original holiness of the model. The only possible icon, instituted by Christ himself, is the eucharist which is the mystical presence of the incarnation. The only permitted representation of the saints is to follow their examples and strive for moral perfection….

In reality, iconoclastic doctrine did not accept the perfect hypostatic union: the union without confusion of divinity and humanity in the person of Christ. It manifested rather a Monophysite foundation: according to the iconoclastic view, the human nature of Christ was practically absorbed by the divinity.

Sendler, 1988: 27.

In short, Christ was too divine to be depicted in a material image.

The council of Hieria condemned “the criminal act of painting” and those who defended images: Germanus, George of Cyprus, and John of Damascus (Sendler, 1988: 27). A new wave of “persecutions, tortures, exiles, spoliations, forced marriages of monks, and executions” ensued (Sendler, 1988: 27). As the monasteries became the centers of resistance, Emperor Constantine V “threw their relics into the sea, transformed monastic buildings into army barracks or stables, and even prohibited the use of the words ‘saint’ and ‘monk” (1988: 27) Sendler writes further:

In 761, some 342 monks were mutilated in various mays and put into the Pretorian prison; others gave their lives for Orthodoxy such as Stephen the Young, Andrew the Cretan, and Paul of Crete… Even the patriarch, Anastasius, was not saved. Although he had been a creature of the emperor, he was later exiled and beheaded.

Sendler, 1988: 27.

In 780 Leo IV died; and his throne was taken over by his wife Irene, as her son (later to be Constantine VI, who became iconoclast unlike his mother) was too young to assume the imperial power. Empress Irene, the first woman to be an empress and who was an iconodule from Athens, appointed Tarsus as Patriarch and convened a council in 786 to be held in Constantinople, which however was intervened by the revolting imperial guard.

About five months later, on September 24, 787, Empress Irene succeeded in convening another council in Nicaea, which came to be known as the second Council of Nicaea, that met in Hagia Sophia (Sendler, 1988: 28). In this ecumenical Council (the seventh and the last), an important distinction was drawn between ‘veneration’ and ‘worship.’ As Sendler summarizes:

Images receive relative or honorific veneration, proskynesis schetike [προσκύνησιςσχετικός], and not worship, latria [λατρεία], which is reserved for God alone. What is more, images are not the ultimate object of veneration because the image only has a reality in relation to the object represented: the image is the reflection of the prototype. Because the veneration of the image is addressed to the prototype, Christ; the veneration is transformed into worship.

Sendler, 1988: 28.

‍In 769 Irene of Athens became the consort of her husband, Leo IV. In 780 Leo died and she became the empress regent for their son Constantine VI. In 797 she became the sole empress by deposing and blinding her own iconoclast son and ruled until 802, when she was dethroned. In 803 she died in the lonely island of Lesbos. Although some Orthodox churches celebrate her feast day on August 9 for convening the Second Council of Nicaea in 787, she was never canonized.

In 781 Irene arranged a marriage between her son, Constantine VI, and Charlemagne’s daughter Rotrude, who was to be given a Greek name, Erythro. Shortly thereafter Irene changed her mind and broke off the engagement, thus angering Charlemagne.

In 794, Charlemagne, the king of the Franks, who was to become the crowned (by Pope Leo III, as approved by Empress Irene) Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire 6 years later (on Christmas in 800) and who was not informed of the Nicaea II council’s 787 decision, convened the council of Frankfurt in 794. At this council, it was decided that icons should be neither prohibited nor worshipped. (Sendler, 1988: 29).

In 813 Leo V the Armenian became the emperor. A former general of Anatolia [Turkia] and an iconoclast, Leo V issued an order prohibiting icons. In 815, however, St. Theodore the Studite replaced Patriarch Nicephorus, who was exiled for opposing Leo V. St. Theodore organized a procession for Palm Sunday in which “1000 monks carrying icons took part,” after which he too was exiled, following after Nicephorus (Sendler, 1988: 31).

In 820 Leo V was assassinated by the supporters of Michael the Stammerer, who was proclaimed emperor and convened another council in Paris to reconcile the two opposing parties over the iconoclast controversy. Before the council could be concluded, Emperor Michael died in 825. His son Theophilus became the successor and assumed the throne in 829.

Emperor Theophilus convened a council in 832 with the aim of renewing the iconoclastic decrees. Once again, monks, especially those of St Abraham’s Monastery, rose up in opposition—as they did against Leo V in 813—which irritated Theophilus and caused him to imprison them along with bishops and iconographers. The second mass persecution of Orthodoxy ensued, though not as severe as the first that occurred in 761 (Sendler, 1988: 27, 32).

I‍n 842 Theophilus died. With his death iconoclasm also died. Theodora and her three year-old son, Michael, assumed the rule, deposed patriarch John the Grammarian, and appointed Methodius, a confessor of Orthodoxy and highly respected clergy in Constantinople (Sendler, 1988: 32-33). In 843 Theodora convened a council to affirm for the last time the seventh Council’s defense of the icons as well as the six previous ecumenical Councils’ decisions (1988: 34). The council also determined that on the first Sunday of Great Lent, March 11, 843, the triumph of Orthodoxy would be celebrated. Sendler writes:

There was an impressive procession presided over by Patriarch Methodius; the empress and the whole court led the procession and behind them followed the monks and the faithful. Many of them still carried on their bodies the marks and proofs of their fidelity. The whole group moved to Hagia Sophia to celebrate the feast of Orthodoxy or the definitive triumph of truth.

Sendler, 1988: 34.

The triumph over iconoclasm “was the beginning of a new split between the West and the East, which was to deepen and contributed to the final separation of the great schism of 1054” (1988: 35).

The triumph over iconoclasm, more importantly for our purpose, diminished the role of symbols in the life of the Orthodox Church. While emphasizing the material reality in the veneration of icons, the victory over iconoclasm ushered in a unintended consequence: a turn toward, in Taft’s words, “incarnational realism” (1981: 59). With the rise of historical realism also emerged “the victory of allegory over sober practicality and symbolism rooted in the true meaning of the sacramental rites” (Taft, 2004: 427).

Taft writes in referring to Patriarch Germanus, who in 725 defended icon veneration, as described above, and was exiled as result:

So what we find in Germanus is the encroachment of a more literal tradition upon another, more mystical level of Byzantine interpretation—and this precisely on the eve of Iconoclasm, when shifts in Byzantine piety led to such growth in the cult of images that Orthodoxy soon found itself locked in [in] mortal combat to defend this new expression of radical incarnational realism against the reaction of a more traditional iconoclastic spiritualism.

Tarf, 1980/1981: 58-59; italics added.

Liturgically, it was during this time period (circa 730) when the development of the rite of Proskomidi took place—the preparation rite in which the bread and wine is prepared on the prothesis before the Divine Liturgy begins. The text and the symbolism of proskomidi is highly historical and realistic, as they refer to the historical events of Jesus’ crucifixion. The text is mostly cited from the Passion narrative in the Synoptic Gospels. The historical realism, thus, entered into the Divine Liturgy in earnest, although Chrysostom is said to have brought the institutional narrative of the Last Supper into the anaphora in the Divine Liturgy.

Accordingly, a shift occurred in the understanding the Eucharist as well—a shift from the heavenly sacrifice that Christ offers perpetually (as described in Heb 1.13, 4.14, 7.3, 11-25, 8.1-5) to a realist understanding thereof as a  representation of (and representational re-enactment of) the historical event of Jesus’ crucifixion as described in the synoptic Gospels. In short, the shift occurred from the present reality of Christ’s sacrifice to the past event of Jesus’ crucifixion.

Recovering Jesus’ Relics and the Holy Places in Jerusalem

If the iconoclasm controversy resulted in the turn toward the historical Jesus, there was a prior movement that also propelled the shift toward historical realism that already have taken place in early 4th-century. It was the movement, initiated by Empress Helena (d. 330), to recover the historical sites and relics associated with Jesus’ life and death in Palestine.

More specifically, the Edict of Milan (aka Peace of Constantiana) issued in 313 created a new movement to hallow the holy places associated with historical Jesus, such as the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem (326-335) and the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem (326-330). Once Christianity became official, the interest in recovering the sites and relics associated with Jesus became intense. Thus, the seeds to turn towards what Taft calls the “incarnation realism” (1980/1981: 59, 65) had already been planted centuries before the iconoclasm controversy. Accordingly, Christ-Event become real as historical events in theological imaginations—the fact which had been assumed all along but did not assume a decisive role in theological discourses.

Pseudo-Dionysius (b/d. ~500), however, belonged to the time period when historical realism had not yet fully flourished. For this reason, his theology remained symbolic, not historical. Thus, he could be placed in the Alexandrian camp. His emphasis and reliance on the role of sacred Symbols as God’s revelation and presence puts him at adds with the more historical and realistic Antiochene camp, as represented by St Chrysostom.

Another major influence that accounts for historical realism and the rise of individualism is St Anselm’s substitutional theory of atonement that was first proposed in the late 11th-century. See Anselm and Byzantine Synthesis.