Icons and the mission to the Slavs

A century of struggle over icons

In the eighth century the churches and homes of the Byzantine Empire were full of icons, painted images of Christ, Mary and the saints, before which believers lit candles, kissed and prayed. In the 720s the emperor Leo III began to move against them, and in 754 his son Constantine V gathered bishops at the palace of Hieria, who condemned icons as idols. Monks who defended icons were beaten and driven out, and some, like the monk Stephen, were put to death. Those who removed the icons said they were keeping God's commandment:

You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in the heavens above, on the earth below, or in the waters beneath. You shall not bow down to them or worship them

Exodus 20:4-5

Why the struggle came just then, scholars debate. Some think defeats by the Arab armies were read as God's anger; others point to the influence of Islam and Judaism, which avoid images. Most of the iconoclasts' own writings are lost, and we know their thought chiefly from their opponents, above all from their decree of 754, which the council of 787 copied into its acts in order to refute it.

The defenders of icons rested their case on the incarnation. The invisible God cannot be pictured, but the Word became flesh and was seen with human eyes, and so his face may be painted. So argued John of Damascus, who lived in the caliph's lands beyond the emperor's reach, in On the Divine Images (see the last lesson, The rise of Islam and the churches of the East). The theology of the struggle is taught in the Theology course's Monks, missions and the parting of East and West.

The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 1:14

The empress Irene, ruling for her young son Constantine VI, held a council at Nicaea in 787. The Second Council of Nicaea distinguished the veneration shown to icons with a kiss or a bow from the worship that belongs to God alone, and had the icons set up again Second Council of Nicaea, Definition on the Holy Images. Yet Irene, who called the council, had her own son blinded in 797 and took the throne alone. The removal of icons began again in 815 and ended in 843 under the empress Theodora; the Orthodox still keep the first Sunday of Lent as the Triumph of Orthodoxy.

How the traditions see icons today

For the Eastern Orthodox an icon is like a window opened onto heaven. They pray before icons, venerating Christ and the saints whom the icons show, and confess that this veneration is not the worship given to God. Catholics also receive Nicaea II as the seventh ecumenical council, distinguish the adoration due to God alone from the veneration of the saints, and keep paintings and statues in their churches. Lutherans held that pictures and crucifixes may stay in churches so long as they are not worshipped, while the Reformed removed images from their places of worship.

The Heidelberg Catechism teaches that "God may not and can not be imaged in any way", and that creatures, though they may be pictured, may not be imaged in order to worship them or to serve God by them Heidelberg Catechism, Q. 97. What this means for worship is the Reformed course's Worship centred on the Word. No tradition teaches the worship of images, and all confess that worship belongs to God alone. Where they differ is where that line lies and how to guard it.

In the Slavs' own tongue, 863

Around 862 Rastislav, prince of Moravia (in today's Czech and Slovak lands), asked the Byzantine emperor Michael III for a teacher who could teach his people the true faith in their own language. The emperor sent two brothers from Thessalonica, Cyril (first named Constantine) and Methodius. Many Slavs lived around Thessalonica, and the brothers knew their speech; Cyril, a scholar, devised the Glagolitic alphabet to write it, and translated the Gospels and the service books. In 863 they went to Moravia, worshipped in the Slavonic tongue and trained disciples. The story is told in The Lives of Constantine-Cyril and of Methodius, which their disciples seem to have written.

As at Pentecost, when "each one heard them speaking his own language" (Acts 2:6), the Slavs heard God's word in their own tongue for the first time. Paul says:

So it is with you. Unless you speak intelligible words with your tongue, how will anyone know what you are saying? You will just be speaking into the air.

1 Corinthians 14:9

Matthew Henry comments, "Language plain and easy to be understood, is the most proper for public worship, and other religious exercises" Matthew Henry.

But the Frankish clergy in Moravia objected that worship should be offered only in the three languages Pilate wrote over the cross, Hebrew, Greek and Latin. The Life of Constantine-Cyril tells how in Venice he argued against those who said the same, citing 1 Corinthians 14 at length. Around 867 the brothers went to Rome, where Pope Hadrian II approved the Slavonic service books, and Cyril died there in 869. Methodius, made archbishop, was seized by Frankish bishops and held for years until the pope intervened.

When Methodius died in 885, his disciples were driven out of Moravia, and some were sold as slaves. Those who reached Bulgaria carried on the Slavonic liturgy, and there the alphabet named after Cyril, the Cyrillic, came into being. The Orthodox honour the brothers as equal to the apostles and teachers of the Slavs. Catholics keep their feast too, and in 1980 Pope John Paul II named them patrons of Europe alongside Benedict.

The baptism of Kyiv, 988

Olga, grandmother of Vladimir, grand prince of Kyiv, had been baptized around 955. The Russian Primary Chronicle (Tale of Bygone Years), compiled in Kyiv around 1113, tells how in 987 Vladimir sent envoys to look into the faiths of other peoples. According to the chronicle, the envoys who saw the liturgy in Hagia Sophia at Constantinople reported that they did not know whether they had been in heaven or on earth, and that they could not forget that beauty. Many historians take this testing of the faiths for a story shaped more than a century later. What is certain is that around 988 Vladimir sent troops to help the emperor Basil II, married the emperor's sister Anna, and was baptized.

The chronicle tells that on his return to Kyiv Vladimir had the idol of Perun thrown into the river, and summoned the people to the Dnieper to be baptized, saying that whoever did not come to the river next day, rich or poor or slave, would be his enemy. A whole people baptized at a ruler's command is a shadow of the missions of that age; yet churches and schools were built in Kyiv afterwards, and the Slavonic liturgy that came from Bulgaria took root. The churches of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus all trace their beginning to this baptism, and the Orthodox honour Vladimir as equal to the apostles.

This lesson's two stories show two gifts of worship. The envoys of Kyiv saw heaven in the beauty of worship; the Slavs of Moravia heard God's word in their own tongue for the first time. Our reading the Bible and worshipping in our own language today follows the road the two brothers walked. The traditions parted ways over icons, but all worship Christ, the Word made flesh. The next lesson, 1054: East and West divided, tells how the churches of Rome and Constantinople, who honour the two brothers together, came to part.

Practice