LESSON 25 BYZANTINE EMPIRE: FROM LEO THE LESSON 25 BYZANTINE EMPIRE: FROM LEO THE ISAUREAN TO THE EAST WEST SCHISMISAUREAN TO THE EAST WEST SCHISM

I. Political and Military History 717-1054

Leo the Isaurian (717-741) Constantine V (741-775)

Sought to reform church: iconoclast controversy

Defended territories against Arab Muslims Greek Fire

Lost Ravenna in Italy to the Franks

775-802 Suffered under Empress Irene

820-867 Amorian Dynasty

Successful against Arab Muslims

Fought off invading RussiansLed Bulgers to confess the Orthodox faith in 860

867-1054 Macedonian Dynasty

Basel I (867-886) “Golden Age”

Basel II (976-1025)

“During the long reign of Basil II the Byzantine Empire became the greatest power in the entire Christian and Muslim world”

Dr. Nick Needham

II. Eastern Worship

BUILDING •No pews•No musical instruments•icons

COMMUNION

SERVICE

Cense the icons

antiphonal

Essentially the same form/type ofworship practiced today!

“Where perfect sweetness dwells has Cosmas gone:

But his sweet songs to cheer the Church live on”

III. The Iconoclastic Controversy (726-843)

“two dimensional pictures or drawings”

1. Muslims opposed icons; Islam was God’s judgment on iconworshipping Byzantium!

2. ‘I am Emperor and Priest”

ICONOCLASTS ICON BREAKERS ICONODULES ICON VENERATORSICONOPHILES ICON LOVERS

Constantine V Council of Constantinople (754)

Leo IV (775-780)

Empress Irene (780-802) 2nd Nicea (787)

7th Ecumenical Council

Empress Theodora (842) “The Triumph of Orthodoxy”

THEOLOGY OF ICONS

1. Do they violate the 2nd Commandment?

Iconoclasts-Yes

Wine and bread

Cross, not crucifix

Iconodules-NO! 2nd Commandment forbids making images of a false God, but not of Christ who is the true God

“When I worship the icon of God, I am not worshipping the nature of the woodAnd the colors (God Forbid!); but, holding to the non-living portrait of ChristI intend through it to hold and worship Christ himself”

Leonitus of Neapolis (d. 650)

2nd Council of Nicea, 867 Absolute worship latriaSecondary veneration of the icon proskunesis

2. Does the fact that the Son of God became a man enable us to portrayHim as a man?

3. What was the practice of the Early Church?

4. What was best for the uneducated people who could not read?”

“What the written word is to those who can read, the icon is to the illiterate; what speech is to the ear, the icon is to the eye”

John of Damascus

SUMMARY: Mostly Eastern Church issue

“There is not a single unambiguous text that mandated icon veneration in the first three centuries” Dr. Calhoun

IV. PHOTIUS AND THE FILIOQUE CONTROVERSY

Photius (820-895)

Teach that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father and the Son

“filioque” Latin “and the Son”

“Treatise on the Mystagogia of the Holy Spirit”

V. Byzantine Monasteries and Simeon the Theologian

VI. Byzantine missionary activity

Morovia

Bulgaria

Romania

VII. Great East West Schism

1. Great rivalry between Rome and Constantinople

2. Great differences in practice

3. Major theological differences

4. Final events precipitating the schism

WESTERN CATHOLIC CHURCHEASTERN ORTHODOX CHURCH