Even as Christianity transformed the Roman Empire under Constantine, heresy had long been a problem for orthodox Christians, primarily in the forms of pagan influence and various Gnostic sects. With both the numerical growth of Christianity and the development of the Church as a Roman institution, though, controversy could come in much more nuanced forms. This essentially refers to the great Christological controversies that would persist until the seventh century and their various proposed solutions. After this, though, the Byzantine Empire would find itself in a much less complex but still highly significant struggle over iconoclasm, and when this disappeared upon the Seventh Ecumenical Council, so ended the final great controversy of the Eastern Empire.
The Arian controversy centered on the teaching of Arius, who in the early fourth century denied the eternity of Christ, His equality with the Father, and that the Father and the Son are of the same substance (Clouse 84). After the Donatists, the Arians were the second heretical group that Constantine faced, and so the Council of Nicaea was called in 325 to establish an orthodoxy that denounced Arianism. As far as the current context is concerned, the most significant result was the adoption of term homoousios, proposed by Constantine himself to describe the Father and the Son as being of the same substance (Frend 140). It is interesting here to note the authority asserted by Constantine, by no means a theologian, in thrusting his term upon the Council. In a sense, it is a sign of the imperial domination of the Eastern Church that is to be witnessed on many occasions by many Byzantine emperors to come.
Arianism was not vanquished by the Council of Nicaea; rather, it would take the later Council of Council of Constantinople in 381 to do that. Called by Theodosius I, it “affirmed the full divinity of …the Christian Trinity,” condemning Arianism in the Empire once and for all (Treadgold 29). Theodosius had called the council because, as a full member of the Church, he felt a particular need to involve himself in the affairs of the Church. Thus he deployed his authority to assemble a council and do away with a heresy in his realm.
Nestorianism arose in the early fifth century following the controversy produced by the objection Nestorius, Archbishop of Constantinople, to the use of the term Theotokos for the Virgin Mary, proposing instead Christokos. He argued that while Mary bore the body of Christ, she could not possibly have borne the Infinite God (Clouse 87). Though it is not what Nestorius proposed in this objection, Nestorianism is the separation of the two natures of Christ into two distinct persons. For the spread of this controversy and for the condemnation of Nestorius at both Rome and Alexandria, Theodosius II called the Council of Ephesus in 431. There, Cyril of Alexandria got Nestorius condemned before his supporters even arrived, but when they did, a Christological dispute broke out between the Alexandrians with Cyril and the Antiochenes with Nestorius. For this Theodosius II deposed both Cyril and Nestorius, though Cyril was able to regain power while Nestorius remained an exile until his death (Clouse 88). Here also the emperor displays complete authority over the bishops, but while Constantine guided their theology toward compromise to promote unity, Theodosius II determined who would be in office to avoid conflict.
Opposed to Nestorianism and far more significant to the development of Byzantine Orthodoxy is Monophysitism, the Christological view that Christ has only one nature, and it is divine. This view was espoused by a monk called Eutyches around the beginning of the fifth century (Clouse 88). Monophysitism was favored by Theodosius II, and so the “Robber Council” of Ephesus was allowed to take place in 449, over which Dioscoros, bishop of Alexandria, presided, showing all favor to Eutyches, “[seeing] to it that only documents favorable to his own cause were read” (Frend 229). It goes without saying that this council ended in favor of Eutyches and Monophysitism, but interestingly, Theodosius died in 450, and being dead his dominant influence was gone from the Church. In 451, therefore, the dyophysites Marcian and Pulcheria ordered the famed Council of Chalcedon, which established the Orthodox, Chalcedonian Christology over a Monophysite Christology, which it condemned with Eutyches (Frend 230-231). The emperor and the empress saw their view affirmed as Orthodoxy.
Despite the monumental statement of orthodox Christology at Chalcedon, Monophysitism was not prepared to disappear, and the number of Monophysite bishops remained high. Compromise was therefore sought, and the first instance of this was the Henotikon of the emperor Zeno, issued in 482. This attempted to unify the Church by leaving the Council of Chalcedon without approval or disapproval and upholding those of Nicaea, Constantinople, and Ephesus. This was an imperial decree, but it sought to establish Church doctrine, specifically the affirmation of the full humanity of Christ so as to achieve elimination of extreme monophysitism (Gregory 108). Naturally, it was the extreme monophysite party that immediately rejected it (Clouse 190). All it really achieved was the creation of the Akakian Schism, named for the Patriarch Akakios, who, as a creature of the emperor, accepted the decree (Gregory 108). The Pope did not, claiming that by ignoring Chalcedon the decree ignored the Tome of Leo, and he excommunicated Akakios (Clouse 190). Thus Zeno’s attempt at compromise led to nothing more than trouble with the West; the Akakian Schism would last until 519. Even if the emperor was able to exert his will over the Patriarch, this did not mean he could do so over the Church at large, especially not in the West.
The next important attempts at compromise on the Monophysite controversy would come under Justinian I, culminating in the Fifth Ecumenical Council at Constantinople in 553. First, however, there was the proposal of Theopaschitism, the belief that “one of the Holy Trinity suffered in the flesh,” as a compromise, which Gregory notes was clearly supported in a 533 law of Justinian. When the Monophysites refused this compromise, Justinian decided that persecution was the answer, so by these means Justinian attempted to develop a unified populace in terms of religious belief; however, this persecution failed, more probably resulting only in the dissemination of the Monophysites more thoroughly through the empire (Gregory 138). For this reason, after years of persecution, Justinian would try again to find a compromise.
The road to the Fifth Ecumenical Council began with an effort to appease the moderate Monophysite majority whose main qualm with Chalcedon was that it had been “tainted with Nestorianism.” The Monophysites demanded the condemnation of three Nestorian bishops, and so Justinian issued the Edict of the Three Chapters in the middle of the 540’s to do just that, and it was generally accepted, but not by the Pope (Treadgold 63). Still desiring the acceptance of the Edict, the Fifth Ecumenical Council, or the Second Council of Constantinople, was called in hopes of its ratification. The eastern bishops went along with the emperor’s wishes, and the Pope was pressured into accepting it at last (Treadgold 65). As for solving the problem of Monophysitism, however, and even for achieving any unity at all, the council was an utter failure. Justinian “had alienated the West, infuriated the Nestorians, and even failed to win over the Monophysites” (Clouse 191).
Even while Justinian was trying to unify the religious factions under his rule, Monophysitism continued to spread without regard for the attempted compromises and Chalcedonian orientation of the emperor. This is the Jacobite Church, led by the bishop Jacob Bardaeus, who as bishop of Edessa wandered the eastern regions of the empire, training and appointing large numbers Monophysite clergy, guaranteeing a lasting Monophysite character in the east. Justinian tried to arrest Bardaeus, but he was unsuccessful (Gregory 139). It would only be the loss of these regions to Islamic invaders that would rid the empire of its Monophysite population, and indeed the hostility of these Monophysites, especially in Egypt thanks to anger over monotheletism, caused many to welcome the change in regime when the Arabs came in 641 (Clouse 192).
Before this, though, much of the East was lost briefly to the Persians in the early seventh century, and it was recovered by Herakleios, who completed its reconquest in 630. Having done this, the bulk of the empire’s Monophysite population was back under the control of Constantinople, and this meant that Monophysitism needed to be addressed once more (Gregory 161). The compromise this time was ultimately Monotheletism, the belief that the two natures of Christ have a single will, but this was only after the Pope and the Patriarch of Jerusalem struck down the attempt of Herakleios and Patriarch Sergios to introduce Monoergism, the belief that the natures of Christ have but one “energy” in 633 (Treadgold 92-93). To advance this doctrine, the emperor published the Ekthesis in 648, declaring it to be imperial policy, but this met no success at all. Chalcedonians and Monophysties were brought no closer, and no beliefs were modified as a result of this imperial mandate (Gregory 161-162). Like Justinian’s attempts at both appeasement and persecution, all monotheletism achieved was schism when the pope condemned the belief in 647 (Clouse 192).
Under Constantine IV, the Sixth Ecumenical Council was called to Constantinople to deal with the issue of Monotheletism, and a Western delegation was also invited. Since the recent Arab conquests had done away with the bulk of the Monophysite influence, the council merely reaffirmed a Chalcedonian Christology without any possibility for Monotheletism or any other previously attempted compromise, and this spelled the end of the Christological controversies at last (Gregory 174). The council also managed to upset the Westerners, which caused the schism to continue until 710 (Clouse 193). So with the rise of Islam and the subsequent loss of much of the Byzantine Empire’s Eastern territory and the proponents of Monophysitism nearly all gone, the need for the Byzantine state to deal with Christology, indeed, most any complex theological issue, was greatly diminished. The consequence of this would be the next and final great controversy, iconoclasm.
The iconoclasm of the eighth century turned out to be the final great controversy of the Orthodox Church under the Byzantine Empire, and in this controversy are echoes of much of earlier Byzantine history. According to Warren Treadgold, “Most Byzantines…believed that their military and political misfortunes showed God’s anger against them” (116). In response to this supposed divine anger, the emperor Leo III outlawed the veneration of icons in 730, and he did so most likely because of “his belief that the veneration of ikons was wrong and that, as emperor, he had a responsibility to God and to his subjects to insist on correct religious practice” (Gregory 192). Thus the iconoclastic controversy began, with an emperor inventing a doctrine in a vain effort to appease God.
Neither the majority of the Byzantine people nor of the Orthodox ecclesiastics agreed with Leo that icons were a problem. Of course, the West was also adamantly opposed to iconoclasm, since icons and images were prominent in Western Christianity (Clouse 193). Notably, John of Damascus, immediately responded with his On Images, which basically argues that “the image is a memorial, just what words are to a listening ear” (Gregory 188), to quote the text itself. Rather than standing on theological grounds, Leo’s argument was largely based on flimsy reasoning from the Law and other admonitions against idol worship found in the Old Testament. Of course, this is no surprise considering the decline of the educational system in the time before the iconoclastic controversy, so much so that “iconoclasts and iconophiles were accusing each other, with reason, of ignorance of theology” (Treadgold 121). This was not the same sort of controversy as any preceding it. This was purely a matter of imperial meddling.
The meddling only grew worse under Leo’s son and successor, Constantine V, who began to openly persecute uncooperative iconophiles. To further complicate the matter, probably having identified the weakness of the earlier defenses of iconoclasm, Constantine V decided to draw Christology into the controversy. Under his rule, iconoclast theology advanced that, in order to venerate an icon, one must abandon a Chalcedonian Christology, for the icon cannot possibly represent both the human and the divine nature of Christ. In order to further legitimize his position, Constantine V called the Council of Hiera in 754, which was packed in order to affirm iconoclasm (Gregory 196). It did just that, according to the emperor’s wishes, even in the face of opposition from the likes of John of Damascus.
These emperors had ample reason to meddle in ecclesiastical affairs. The flourishing of popular religion, through such things as icons and hagiographies (Treadgold 117), was a threat to an emperor under whose rule the Eastern Church had always been subject. This new multitude of objects of veneration could not possibly encourage the veneration of the emperor, the representative of God, and so it is naturally concluded that God must not be receiving the proper veneration, either. Gregory grants the analogy some plausibility (192). It is not implausible to think the emperor would prefer to be the one representative of one god, rather than to allow for many representations of God, angels, saints, and so forth. In this way, the divide is almost like that between Christianity and paganism.
After these two emperors, the iconophiles regained control through Irene, the widow of Constantine V. She called the Seventh Ecumenical Council, the Second Council of Nicaea, to meet in 787. There, iconoclasm was “duly condemned,” but “Iconoclasts were allowed to repent” (Gregory 198). In 813, however, the iconoclast Leo V assumed the throne, and he immediately set about enforcing an iconoclastic program in the style of Leo III. He replaced the Patriarch Nikepherous with John Grammatikos, who acknowledged the Council of Hiera, which an emperor again demonstrated his power to do. Iconoclasm had begun its resurgence, but Leo V was assassinated in 820 (Gregory 205). The conspirator that then took control of the Byzantine Empire was Michael II, another iconoclaste. His heir was his son Theophilus, whose iconoclastic background had made its impact. His wife Theodora, however, was not of like mind, and after Theophilus’ death, iconoclasm was put down for good (Treadgold 130-131). Such is the triumph of Orthodoxy.
From the deep and difficult philosophical questions of Christology to the brute assertion of iconoclasm, the Orthodox Church of the Byzantine Empire faced constant difficulty. Emperors, even with the most pragmatic intentions of unifying the Eastern Church, continually exerted their authority over the Church, but this did not translate to an exertion of authority over belief. Thus lingering issues, especially Monophysitism, managed to persist, for better or for worse. Eventually, though, as the Byzantine state weakened and territory was lost, the smaller and more cohesive empire saw a semblance of the unity that the older emperors had sought for their much more widespread domains. By the ninth century, Orthodox belief had become mostly stable, but at great political expense on the part of the empire.
Bibliography
Clouse, Robert, Richard Pierard, and Edwin Yamauchi. Two Kingdoms. The Church and Culture through the Ages. Moody, Chicago: 1993.
Frend, W.H.C. The Early Church. Fortune Press, Minneapolis: 1982.
Gregory, Timothy. A History of Byzantium. Blackwell, Malden, MA: 2005.
Treadgold, Warren. A Concise History of Byzantium. Palgrave, New York: 2001.
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