Byzantine Defenders of Images: Eight Saints' Lives in English TranslationDumbarton Oaks
edited by Alice-Mary Talbot
ISBN: 0884022684
price: $20.00 paperback
This second volume in the series Byzantine Saints' Lives in
Translation introduces saints who were active during the period
of the iconoclastic controversy in Byzantium (726843). For
almost a century and a half, theological and popular opinions
were strongly divided on the question of the manufacture and
veneration of icons of Christ, the Virgin, and saints.
Iconodules, or defenders of icons, argued that the incarnation of
Christ meant that He could be circumscribed, while a series of
emperors imposed on the empire a policy of iconoclasm, literally
the "breaking of images," claiming that Christ, as
divine, could not be depicted in human form.
Among the holy men and women featured in this volume are several
who opposed imperial edicts and suffered for their defense of
images: the nun Theodosia, who valiantly led a group of women in
the effort to save the famous icon of Christ Chalkites over the
palace gate and became the first iconodule martyr; Anthousa of
Mantineon, abbess of a double monastery, who was tortured with
the embers from burning icons; Stephen the Younger, dragged to
his death through the streets of Constantinople; Symeon of
Lesbos, the pillar saint whose column was attacked by iconoclast
fanatics; and Nikephoros I, patriarch of Constan-tinople and
theologian of image veneration, who was deposed from his throne
and exiled.
Two of the vitae provide vivid information on holy men and
monasticism in the provinces during the iconoclastic era:
Ioannikios, a wandering monk with special gifts for foretelling
death and expelling snakes, and David, Symeon, and George, three
brothers from Lesbos who exemplify a family's commitment to the
monastic life.
The final vita eulogizes the empress Theodora. Wife of the ardent
iconoclast Theophilos, Theodora venerated icons in secret in
defiance of her husband. Following his death, she took advantage
of her regency for her young son to reinstate image veneration in
843, thus ensuring the continuation of the Orthodox tradition of
sacred art.
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