Byzantine Iconoclasm and Monachomachy

Abstract

According to the Byzantine sources, the reign of the iconoclastic emperor Constantine v (741–775) was characterised by an attack on the very institution of monasticism, and the brunt of the persecution directed against the ‘orthodox’ was borne by the monastic order. This anti-monastic phase of iconoclasm has not passed unnoticed in modern attempts to clarify the origins and motive forces of the iconoclastic movement as a whole. The gamut of explanations ranges from an extreme position which maintains that die iconoclastic movement itself was merely a pretext for attacking parasitic monasteries and to confiscate their land holdings, through more balanced views which claim that the enthusiastic and determined propagation and defence of image-worship by monks was an obstacle which had to be removed by breaking the power of monasticism if the official iconoclastic policies were to be effective, to a recent more sophisticated approach which claims to recognise in both monasticism and icon-worship illegitimate, unlicensed forms of spirituality, signs of separatist tendencies which die State battling against Islam for survival could not afford to tolerate.