Drawn Without Voice: Belief and Identity through Iconoclasm

Article by Liz Goodwin. Edited by Stephen Woodward.

In 726, the Christ of the Chalkitis, the image that symbolically protected Constantinople, was ordered to be removed by the Byzantine Emperor, Leo III. In its place, Leo had a cross constructed, with the inscription “The Lord does not allow a portrait of Christ to be drawn without voice.” Instead, he wished to promote “the blessed prototype of the cross, [for] the glory of the faithful.” It was a reaction to deep fears over theological and military superiority from the new, external religious force of Islam. On Bonfire Night, 1641, a crowd in Chelmsford, England, broke the stained glass windows in St Mary’s Church depicting Christ’s ascension to heaven. This incident, and many similar ones around Protestant England, was a response against the ‘Beauty of Holiness’ ideal of Archbishop Laud’s traditionalist reforms in Reformation England. At first glance, it appears that neither have anything materially in common, besides the elimination of an image of Jesus. Yet in comparison, these examples of iconoclasm provide deep and valuable insights into much more than simple episodes of religiously motivated vandalism. They reveal, in the most physical way possible, the belief and identity of the activist, placing humanity at the heart of religious communities. 

Iconoclastic incidents in Early Modern England and Medieval Byzantium had strong motivational links in the overwhelming desire to purify the existing church of its mistakes and its sins. Encouraged by outside changes and military threats from external spheres, both private and public iconoclastics wished to revert back to a simpler, more pious reading of the Bible for occasional material but ultimately spiritual gain. For the Byzantines, the eruption of the volcanic island of Thera in 726 coupled with the increasing military expansionism of the Muslim armies looked ominously like the wrath of God. It was a coincidence not lost on the Emperor. According to the author of The Life of St Stephen the Younger, Leo III ‘[pronounced] these grievous words: “the making of icons is a craft of idolatry: they may not be worshipped.”’ In their theological differences with Islam, the veneration of icons held a prominent place; Leo’s image-breaking actions appear to mirror the contemporary Muslim leader Yazid’s attacks on images, themselves motivated by ‘ideological hostility’ to traditional Christian practises. 

As the Reformation dawned across Europe centuries later, the simplicity of Scripture appealed again. In rejecting ‘all Popery and Popish innovations’, believers attempted iconoclasm in essentially much the same way as Leo III had: they wished to cleanse the church and appeal once again to God, and were motivated by new ideas and theories from abroad. As the English government waxed and waned in its enforcement and enactment of Reformation practices, iconoclasm was used both as an early propaganda tool by the authorities, but also, and more prolifically, by independents in secret, intermittent outbursts by ordinary people. These grass-roots image-breakers attempted to rid their country and communities of the remnants of their spiritual enemies, to find meditative fulfilment in silent, picture-less spaces. Whilst being enormously different in themselves, ideological motivations for both the Byzantine government and sixteenth century activists came from abroad and had links to new, foreign, exciting and troubling religious messages. 

The differences in both case studies are, however, sometimes stark in comparison, and explain a great deal about the religious climate and culture of both periods. While both iconoclastic episodes were motivated by a need to cleanse and purify the church, it is the matter of who pursued iconoclasm, and not why it was pursued in the first place, that remains the biggest divergence in their cases. Byzantine iconoclasm was essentially the Emperor alone, acting to fulfil his duty as servant of God and his people, enforcing correct religious practice. Theophanes the Confessor refers to Leo III as ‘Saracen-minded,’ regarding the veneration of icons in his eighth century history, and it is as much a comment on how much the Emperor had in common with Muslim single-minded, morally-enforced implementation, than simply shared, respectful belief and theological interpretation. It was fundamentally a top-down, personal belief-driven movement, with much less operational, independent-of-the-state action than in Reformation England. Beginning with moderately iconoclastic governmental reforms, it would very un-official policy that created image-breaking controversy. The peaceful mildness of early policy (the overwriting of images with graffiti-like text) was actively rejected with alarming forcefulness by the laity, whose actions were a response to, not legitimised by, governmental authority as it had been in Byzantium several centuries earlier. With the ideals of the Reformation in mind (the importance of personal lay involvement as strong as religious purity), iconoclasm in England can be viewed as countering authority-advanced religious changes as well as forwarding centralised government controls. The Byzantines had no such independent ability – at least none that is recorded without persecution. 

Nevertheless, the participants in both cases of image breaking affirm a fundamental principle in religious belief generally: the need to re-interpret, understand, assess, and question doctrinal council and Scripture. It may come in the form of questioning established religious authority, as in the Reformation, in what Besancon calls the Calvinistic ‘spring cleaning’ of the seventeenth century, or ‘the great discarding of clutter.’ Equally, it may come from a desire for God’s favour, in the midst of difficult circumstances and fearfully facing an ideological and advancing enemy, just as the Byzantines had centuries before. The language employed by the Second Council of Nicaea in 787, the council that temporarily ended iconoclasm in the eighth century, appears at first conventional and formidable (“We salute the venerable images…. Anathema to those who do not salute the holy and venerable images,”), but actually, remains remarkably open-ended, calling instead for future re-examinations. 

In the contemplative and personal aspects of iconoclasm, it is the sense of identity within belief that is most fundamental to the physical breaking of images. Iconoclasm allows the iconoclast to assert themselves as a member of their faith through physical action – both case studies show discontent with contemporary, established interpretation, and both display their disquiet in the most physical and symbolic way. An iconoclast was forced to act because they believed it to be so counter to ‘correct’ doctrine, needing to obliterate, both physically and mentally, its material and emblematic value. In breaking an image, the religious activist places themselves at the very heart of a dramatic assertion of ‘truthful’ interpretation, causing a real and representative split with the past. 

When discussing iconoclastic controversies, Margaret Aston asks the question “Are we dealing with an instinctive form of human behaviour?” From these examples, it would appear that the answer, whilst not a simple ‘yes’, demonstrates the human need to belong, to feel correct in one’s belief, and to inwardly and outwardly question the principles of faith when threats to fundamental belief appear. The acts themselves, represented in Leo III’s removal of the Christ of the Chalkitis and the smashing of stain glass windows by a group of Chelmsford villagers, reveal a basic human need to assert oneself as a person of their time, and as one who is resolutely correct in what they believe.

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