ICONOC)ASTS, i-lcon'6-klasts (image breakers), that Christian party in the Church of the 8th and 9th centuries who would not tolerate images in the churches or places of worship. The Byzantine emperor, Leo the Isaurian, issued an edict in 726 ordering the people to abstain entirely from paying religious reverence to sacred images and a second edict soon after ordered the destruction of the im ages. This order occasioned commotions, first in the islands of the Archipelago; and as the Popes Gregory II and III, as well as Germanus, the patriarch of Constantinople, declared the veneration of sacred images to be in consonance with the Church's doctrine and constant prac tice, and the Emperor Leo refused to recall his edict on their command, they excommunicated him, and his subjects in Italy threw off their allegiance. Thence arose two parties, the Icono olatrr (image worshippers) and the Icono clasts. Leo's son and successor, Constantine Copronytnus, held the same views as his father. He convened a council at Constantinople (754), in which the use as well as the worship of images was condemned. Constantine's son. Leo IV, who ascended the throne 775, fol lowed the same course, but proceeded with more clemency and moderation. On the death of
Leo IV, in 780, he was succeeded by his son, Constantine, under the guardianship of Irene, mother of the latter, and widow of Leo. Irene favored the orthodox party, and on attaining this position of authority, openly avowed her sentiments, and summoned a council to be held in 787, under her protection at Nicam (Nice) in Bithynia, to pass upon the question at issue. This council condemned the Iconoclasts. Among the Greeks the controversy concerning images broke out anew after the banishment of Irene (802), and lasted about half a cen tury. Her successor, Nicephorus, did not, in deed, remove the images from the churches, but he forbade the adherents of the images from persecuting their adversaries. Finally the Empress Theodora, by a council held at Constantinople (842), restored the worship of images among the Greeks, which was confirmed by a second council, held 869-70, in the same place. Consult 'Seances Academy des Inscript> (May 1903) ; Tougard, 'La Persecution Icono claste) (1897).