717-787

Leo III of Assyria: (717-740) During their ordeal, the Romans gave birth to Leo the Assyrian, who inflicted a severe defeat on the Muslims and drove them away from Constantinople. This attempt was the last of its kind in the history of the Umayyad caliphs.

Leo was concerned with legislation, and he saw that the laws and regulations dating back to the era of Justinian the Great had no longer needed reconsideration and amendment. He saw people preferring custom even over some of Justinian's laws. He also saw that after the decline of the empire as a result of the Islamic wars and the Slavic and Bulgarian rule over a large part of the Balkans, Greek had become the only language that the population understood, and therefore there must be legislation in Greek, unlike Justinian's legislation written in Latin. In the year 726, he selected a committee of senior jurists who was entrusted with reconsideration, and the Eclogo appeared, meaning the word “elected.” Its eighteen sections include civil rights and personal status. She did little research into the penalty. The Aklogha was more Christian than the Digest.

There are three other laws dating back to the Assyrian era as well, the most famous of which is the Farmers’ Law. The Russian scientist Benchenko believes that this law is derived from the custom that prevailed in rural areas and which was not included in the Aklugha. In some copies of the Aklugha script, we find appendices that include two other laws, one naval and the other military.

Icons: Icon is a Greek word that means an image or drawing. It is used in religious matters to refer to images of saints. There are two types of icons in church tradition: the ordinary ones and the miraculous ones. The Icon War is divided into two periods: the first from the year 726 to the year 780, which is the year of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, and the second extends from the year 813 to the year 843 and ends with the return of Orthodoxy to its original state. {And because we called this era the era of ecumenical councils, we will not mention the second period in this section, but you will find it in the subsequent section “Until the twelfth century - from divergence to schism”... (Al-Shabaka)}

The causes of the Iconic War are still neither clear nor established, because what we know about it is mostly taken from the statements of one of the two opponents. The works of those who fought icons have been lost. The rest of it came in the responses written by the opponents. In this case, he is not fit to be taken into account because he lacks justice. What is true of this statement regarding general works is also true of the decisions of the two councils that discussed the matter of venerating icons. The decisions of the Council of the Year 754 were stated in the decisions of the Seventh Ecumenical Council.

Researchers of the causes of this conflict differ in opinion. Some of them see its reasons as religious, while others see it as political. The modern Greek historian Paparigopoulou sees in his book The History of Greek Civilization that the Iconoclast was essentially a war of political and social reform, and that Leo III and his successors from his family wanted to liberate teaching and upbringing from the control of the clergy, and that the enlightened, liberal elements in the state and some senior clergy and the army supported this movement. Reformism and that the failure of all of them resulted from the ignorant elements of women and monks clinging to everything ancient. The French historian Lombard believes in his book Constantine V that the Iconoclast was a religious reform movement aimed at purifying Christianity from the filth of paganism, and that it came at the same time as other attempts at reform. The Frenchman Louis Brahe also believes that the fight against icons has two sides. There is an argument over the veneration of icons, and there is careful research into whether it is correct to symbolize the supernatural through drawing and photography. The Russian Ouspenki believes that the real reason that prompted Plaun and his successors to engage in this war was their fear of the monks’ increasing wealth and increasing influence. The quarrel was temporal and political in the beginning, so the monks made it religious in order to tempt the hearts of the believers and urge them to resist the government’s policy.

In fact, the objection to icons was not new. At the beginning of the fourth century, the local council of Elvira in Spain forbade placing images in churches. Eusebius, the church historian, believed that venerating images of the Lord, Peter, and Paul was a “custom of the nations.” Also in the same fourth century, Epiphanius of Cyprus tore a curtain in one of the churches of Palestine because it was bearing an image of the Lord and one of the saints. In the fifth century, Khenaeas, Bishop of Manbij (488), objected to the icons before his ordination. In the sixth century, Agathias (582+) strove to protect the icon of St. Michael against the objectors, and before the end of that same century in the year 599, Serenus, Bishop of Marseille, forbade the installation of icons in churches, so Saint Gregory, Pope of Rome, wrote to him, commending the non-worship of what is made by humans and reminding of the time. The same applies to illiterate believers who neither read nor write, and the need to help them look at what they cannot read in books. It must not be forgotten that the Jews were never satisfied with any of this, and that the Qur’an taught that monuments are an abomination, the work of Satan (Surat Al-Ma’idah), and that Manichaeism, in its Pauline guise, denounced the veneration of icons.

Leo and the icons: Leo was devoted to religion and the state, and he sought the paths of maturity, reforming the judiciary, administration, and finance. He did not ignore his southern borders for the blink of an eye, so he monitored the Muslims and took stock of their conditions. He monitored the Paulists spread throughout his southern provinces, northern Syria, and Cilicia, and mentioned their position on the Holy Cross and prostration to them. He did not forget the Jews, their hatred, and what they said in the icons, so he saw that the state’s interest required dealing with this issue seriously.

Charles Dale believes that Leo grew up in an Asian family environment that detested icons and saw honoring them as a deviation from the right faith, and that he desired political, social, and economic reform. He saw that if he fought icons, he would strike the monks with a decisive blow, thus killing two birds with one stone. Kar Schenk sees in the person of Leo III an intense piety and mysticism that made him consider the calamities that befell the state, and he attributes this to the veneration of icons. Karl Schwarz Lozi says something about this and adds that Leo was a rough soldier who had no taste for art, and that his family upbringing and contact with Jews and Muslims led him to destroy icons, especially since he considered himself a temporal and spiritual leader at the same time.

Yazid and icons: (723) Specialists believe that the Qur’an forbade idols and monuments, but was silent about pictures and drawings, and that the prohibition of these came only in the hadith. They also believe that the Umayyads decorated some of their palaces with what resembled living creatures. They did not hesitate to trade in the Byzantine currency that carried fees of emperors, and that the fight against fees on living creatures began during the reign of Abd al-Malik Ibn Marwan. They also see the fact that the mosaics of the Umayyad Mosque - formerly the church - are free of drawings of living people as evidence that the fight against drawings began in the early eighth century.

The fight against icons included churches, temples, and homes, so Abd al-Malik bin Marwan ordered all crosses to be destroyed. Then Yazid II (720-724) came and approached a Jew from Tiberias and listened to him. This advised him to destroy all pictures and crosses wherever they were found, in order to prolong the life and reign of the Caliph. Yazid ordered this, and he died the following year. It was stated in the book Al-Khattab by Al-Maqrizi (vol. 2, pp. 492-493) that when Yazid died, Osama Ibn Zaid Al-Tanukhi was in charge of the tax on the Christians in Egypt, so he became more aggressive against them and imposed a burden on them. “Then the churches were demolished, the crosses were broken, the statues were erased, and all the idols were broken.” It was also mentioned in the history of Abu Faraj al-Malti that Yazid “ordered that the image of every living thing be removed from the temples, walls, woods, stones, and books,” and that Leo leaned on that.

Bishops of Asia Minor: People were concerned about the news of Yazid, and his mail spread throughout Asia Minor, so Constantine, Bishop of Nocotia, welcomed him and spoke freely about this matter. His superior, Metropolitan Synnada, objected to him, so Constantine went to Constantinople to discuss the issue of the dispute according to what was stated in the twentieth chapter of the Book of Exodus: “You shall have no other gods before me.” You shall not make for yourself a graven image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the waters under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God.” The Metropolitan had written to the Patriarch about this as well. The Patriarch silenced the bishop and wrote to the metropolitan and presented his response to the bishop, requesting that he deliver it to his superior. The bishop returned to Nicolia and kept the Patriarch’s letter, which angered the Metropolitan. The Patriarch learned of this and wrote to the bishop threatening him with amputation. Constantine's neighbors were Thomas, Bishop of Claudiapolis, and Theodosius, Archbishop of Ephesus. It was an argument and a start for iconoclasm.

With the secret of the Syrian and Lawon: (723). It was stated in the Annals of Theophanes that Leo loved a Syrian renegade named Busra, and that Busra was a guerrilla hero, so Leo loved him and sympathized with him. Busr was captured by the Arabs, so he converted to Islam and gained favor with the Jew Tiberius, whom Yazid the Caliph had brought close to him personally. It was also reported that Basra returned to Constantinople in the year 723 and contacted Leo and made him a penguin, and he was killed in the Artifizdah Revolt in the year 740.

Some researchers attach importance to Leo's contact with Sir, pointing out that Leo announced his position on icons in the same year that he contacted Leo. In our view, this is a weak conclusion that cannot be relied upon. The mere fact that the two events occurred in the same year does not justify the conclusion that one event caused the other. They also attach importance to the “Eastern” title that was later attached to Leo, and they link this title to the influence of Muslims on his religious policy. They forget that the justice of the narrators who attached this title is not proven.

Santorina volcano: (726) The volcano on the island of Santorina erupted in the year 726, and a small island near it sank, and a new island appeared above the surface of the water. Leo saw divine wrath in all of this, so he summoned the people in the capital and addressed them as a warning, urging them to worship God alone and to regret what they had neglected in honoring icons. The audience growled and murmured, and the Emperor confirmed that he did not intend to belittle the icons or belittle them, but rather wanted to raise them to high places in the church so that touching and kissing them would not lead to their destruction.

Khalkha icon: (727) Then Leo unleashed his whims and ordered, at the beginning of the year 727, that the icon of the Lord the Savior be taken down from its place above one of the entrances to Khalka Palace. The residents of the capital were disturbed, and some of them attacked to prevent the icon from being lowered. The security men repelled them, and the two teams clashed, causing some casualties. The demonstrators were arrested, some were flogged, others were mutilated, and others were exiled.

Leo's propaganda did not fall on deaf ears among the professors of the University of Constantinople, and he became angry with his dignity and confused them. Perhaps he closed this institution. There is no apparent truth to what was stated in some later references that Leo ordered the burning of the university library.

In this same year, Leo's propaganda sparked the anger of the soldiers under the theme of Heladiki in Greece itself, so they boarded the sea and sailed to Constantinople, arriving at its waters on the eighteenth of April of the year 727. But they were not able to withstand the Greek fire, so they failed, so the emperor ordered their commanders to be slaughtered.

The Patriarch and the Pope: Leo was attentive and never neglected to consider what was most important to him. Until the year 730, he continued to wait for opportunities and negotiate. In the year 728, Germanus negotiated with the Ecumenical Patriarch regarding icons and claimed that all the patriarchs and emperors had strayed from the right path due to their honor and respect for icons. Then he was horrified and frightened, but Germanus forgave him and disappointed him.

In the meantime, Leo wrote a letter to the Pope of Rome, Gregory II, promising a generous promise if he agreed to ban icons, threatening to be deposed if he violated the royal desire. Gregory warned the believers of the Emperor’s tyranny, his wandering, and their protection from him.

It is inferred from what remains of the texts of these letters that Leo invoked the Torah to prohibit icons, so he cited the eighteenth chapter of the Second Book of Kings and mentioned, “How Hezekiah removed the high places, and destroyed the pillars, and crushed the bronze serpent that Moses had made for the children of Israel. Until those days, they revered it and called it Nehushtan.” He claimed that it was only It requires the effect of this good king. Among Leo's arguments in this letter is that he considered himself a priest and an emperor. As for Gregory, he blamed Leo for doing what he did without consulting the relevant authorities and assured him that what was mentioned in the Torah came to deter the Jews from worshiping idols.

It is noted here that the objection of the authorities to the authenticity and authenticity of these letters disappeared after the appearance of careful research carried out by the scholar George Ostrogorski, professor of Roman history at the University of Belgrade.

At the end of the year 729, Leo repeated the matter and discussed the issue of icons again with Germanus and feigned affection for him and flattered him, but Germanus insisted on the fathers. The Emperor listened to him, but he turned away from his affection and was tired of his familiarity.

Prohibition of icons: Leo became confident in his matter, so the Silentians called a legal session in the Dafna Palace in the nineteen-bed hall on January 17, 730. The Silentians were a supreme council that included members of the Senate and senior statesmen and church figures. Leo had ordered the preparation of an official statement prohibiting icons. When the attendance was complete, the Emperor asked Patriarch Germanos to sign this statement. The Patriarch refused, raised the omophorion and said to the Emperor: “I am Greek, throw me into the sea.” I can only recognize the constitution approved by the Ecumenical Council.” He went out to his father’s house and spent his days there. It was stated that he was expelled from the patriarchate and forced to reside in a monastery, but this is a weak statement.

Leo considered the see of Constantinople vacant, so he ordered the appointment of Anastasius Synclus. He was elected as an Ecumenical Patriarch on the twenty-eighth of the same month, and he called the Council of Constantinople to convene and forbade the use of icons. He sent messages of peace and addressed one of them to Gregory II, Pope of Rome, and informed him of what he had done. The Bishop of Rome objected and urged him to return to Orthodoxy.

The Emperor and the new Patriarch restricted those who supported icons and tortured, mutilated, and executed a large number of believers. But the primary references do not enable us to identify the martyrs of this period. It was stated in the biography of Stephen the Younger that the residents of the capital fled in droves, and that the parents of Stephen the Younger sent their son as a hermit, and he grew up as a monk.

The position of the Church of Antioch: The Church of Antioch was still an orphan without a shepherd. But her righteous son, John of Damascus, rose to defend the true religion, compiling three letters in which he responded to Leo and his followers. He enriched the universal Church with compelling, logical theological arguments that later became the Church’s main argument. Some trustworthy scholars consider these letters of his to be the best of his books, because in them he demonstrated an ability in ijtihad that surpassed all his peers among the scholars of the eighth century. Our saint was not satisfied with what the Apostle Paul said: “Adhere to the traditions that you have learned, either through our words or through our message.” Rather, he went further than this and considered the icon an intermediary symbol in the neo-Platonic sense. Then he linked its honor to the mystery of the divine incarnation and the mystery of salvation, stressing that whoever fights the icon denies the sanctity of the visible form of God and threatens the mystery of Incarnation by collapse.

Some specialists believe that John of Damascus spoke on this matter in the name of John V, Patriarch of Jerusalem and leader of the churches of Jerusalem and Antioch at the time, and that this is what made him threaten Leo with a curse and amputation. What is noteworthy on this occasion is that our saint objected to Leo’s interference in matters of doctrine and considered researching them to be one of the characteristics of the universal Church alone.

Leo's interest in religion led to the seceding of the Assyrian dioceses from the Church of Antioch and their annexation to the Church of Constantinople. Our church lost twenty-four bishops and a metropolitan. Perhaps the political-military situation necessitated this division. After the Islamic conquest, Assyria became far from Antioch and subject to the Roman Emperor.

Pope Gregory III: (731-741) Gregory III called for a local council in Rome on the first of November of the year 731. This council excommunicated anyone who resisted respecting and honoring icons. Leo, in turn, deprived the Bishop of Rome of income from his endowments in Calabria and Sicily, and lifted his spiritual authority over the Irian, Calabrian, and Sardinian churches, and attached them all to the Ecumenical Patriarchate. By doing this, he sowed a rift in the church that later led to disastrous consequences.

Constantine Al-Zebli: (740-775) Leo died in the year 740, and Constantine V took over the crisis of rule in Constantinople. He was the one who was given the nickname “Kopronymos” because he was secreted into the baptismal font at the time of baptism. It is also narrated that he was nicknamed Al-Zubli because he loved horses. He had barely ascended his throne when his brother-in-law, Arnavesdos, the husband of his sister Anna, took the kingdom from him. Constantine was forced to besiege the capital, seize it by force, gouge out the eyes of his son-in-law and the eyes of his two sons, and exile all three together.

Constantine adopted the resistance to icons and echoed the words of the men of this resistance, confirming the impossibility of representing God through matter because matter is fleeting and God is eternal. He said that what is true about God applies to the Virgin and the saints because they became with God. If they are mutilated by matter, the honor of their existence before God is stripped from them. He added that Christ is the image of the Father, so if we imitate him with matter, we strip him of his divine nature and become Nestorians. Patriarch Nicophorus says that Constantine wrote a treatise on this subject in which he affirmed the impossibility of representing the two natures of Christ the Divine and required that the Eucharist be considered the only image of the Lord. Constantine was deluded in his error, so he replaced the word “epostasis,” which the fathers had approved in the councils, with the word “procyton,” thereby conforming to those who believed in one nature. Hence the statement of Michael the Syrian, the Jacobite, that the Chalcedonians rejected Constantine and his sayings because he willingly accepted the challenges approved by the Orthodox, that is, the Jacobites.

Constantine and the Cross: Then Al-Zubali began to persecute the church, mocking every saint and celebrating him. Preventing holidays and fasting. He destroyed icons and painted the walls of churches to erase the images and drawings. But he respected the cross, so he decorated every arch with it, painted it enlarged on the ceilings of churches, and engraved it on coins and seals.

The cross of these broken people was broad-ended, similar to a certain extent to the cross of the Knights of Malta. It sometimes appeared on coins and seals standing above a small amphitheater. At other times, it appeared in a group of leafy branches influenced by the shape of the Victory Cross of Constantinople. Perhaps the relationship of the cross with victory was the motivation for the broken people to cling to the cross and keep them on it.

Hierarchy of Antioch: The Antiochian Orthodox Orthodox denounced Leo and his son for their heresy and disgraced their work. John of Damascus wrote his letters denouncing and prohibiting this heresy, and the Patriarch of Jerusalem, John V, supported him in this, as we previously indicated. There was an apparent and tangible disagreement between the Roman Emperor and the senior men of the Universal Orthodox Church in the Patriarchates of Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria. All of this was interceded with Hisham Ibn Abd al-Malik, and his suspicion of his Orthodox subjects weakened, so he granted them permission to return to their ancient rights by appointing patriarchs for them from their local rabbis. They elected a monk who was honored by Hisham and revered by the Order of Antioch in the year 742 under the name of Stephen IV.

The debate intensified at this time between Muslim scholars and Christian fathers, and they quarreled and prevailed in the debate, each one wanting to involve his opponent. Peter, the Metropolitan of Damascus, intervened in this controversy, and Stephen IV, the new Patriarch of Antioch, supported him. Al-Walid II, Caliph Hisham (743-744), was angry at the dignity of Islam and Muslims, so he ordered Stephen to have his tongue cut out, and he died in the year 744. Then he ordered Peter to have his tongue cut out as well, and he was exiled to “Arabia Felix.” Theodoros Abu Qara, Bishop of Harran, survived, and perhaps the reason for this was that he argued with those with one will and one nature.

In the year 745, Marwan II was satisfied with the Orthodox priest Theophilectos Ibn Qanbara, the goldsmith of Rahawi, and he instructed that he be elected Patriarch of Antioch. He was elected and received the crutch of care. He wrote peace letters and addressed them to his fellow heads of the five churches. He was forced to defend the integrity of the faith, so he restricted the rest of the monks of the House of Marun in Manbij and the Orontes Valley.

Boutros Al-Qassar had permitted the Georgians (today's Georgia, one of the former Soviet Union countries) in the second half of the fifth century to elect a Catholicos (the Patriarch of Georgia called the Catholicos...the network) over them, on the condition that he be ordained by the Patriarch of Antioch. When the Islamic invasion took place and relations were severed between the Antiochian See and the lands of Karaj, the Catholic See was vacant, just as the Antiochian See was vacant. In the year 745, a Karaji delegation came to negotiate with Theophilectos, the Patriarch, regarding the presidency. The Patriarch summoned the bishops to a local council and allowed the Georgians to elect their president and ordain him independently, on the condition that they mention the Patriarch of Antioch and pay him an annual sum. The situation remained in this manner until approximately the thousandth year, when the Patriarch of Jerusalem replaced the Patriarch of Antioch in the Georgian church system.

Hieriya Complex: (754) Al-Zubli settled his heart into a past resolve, and around the year 753 he set out to consult the subjects regarding the matter of the doctrine upon which he had set his intention. He ordered the governors and bishops to hold meetings for this purpose. After the signs of victory became apparent, he called the bishops to a council in Hieriya Palace near Chalcedon on February 10, 754. Three hundred and thirty-eight bishops gathered on this date. No representative of the churches of Rome, Alexandria, Jerusalem, or Antioch appeared among them. Anastasius, Patriarch of Constantinople, died before this council was held, and Theodoros, Metropolitan of Ephesus, assumed its presidency. He was famous for his hostility to icons. Sisinio, Bishop of Perga, and Basil, Bishop of Antioch in Sidia, assisted him in running the council’s affairs.

The gathered fathers discussed the matter of icons, so they adopted the words of Leo and his son and required their removal. They confirmed that portraying Christ with matter means one of two things. As for saying with Nestorius the possibility of separating the two natures and portraying one of them, which is humanity, or keeping up with the Monophysites and saying with them one nature, which is the divine. The parents refused to accept any of Al-Zubali’s private opinions. We see them confirming that Mary is the Mother of God and that she is the highest of creatures interceding with all the saints on behalf of humanity. The Fathers prohibited any vandalism in churches or any destruction without the approval of the Patriarch and the Emperor.

In the middle of August of the year 754, Al-Zebli presented the new Patriarch Constantine Selion to the assembled fathers. Then, on the twenty-seventh, it announced the summary of the work of this council, accompanied by an imperial will stipulating its implementation and leading to the amputation of Germanus of Constantinople, George of Cyprus, and John of Damascus. The assembled fathers assumed the ecumenical character of this council and considered it the seventh ecumenical council.

Restriction and persecution: Constantine V Al-Zebelli was strengthened by the decisions of this council, so he rushed to fight icons more than before and poured out his wrath and affliction on the monks. How many eyes were gouged out, and how many hands and ears were cut off, in addition to being killed. A group of them were forced to marry. He once paraded a group of them in the Hippodrome Square, requiring each of them to hold a woman's hand during the parade. Theophanes says that one of the rulers of Asia Minor (Michael Lakhanodracon) gathered the monks and nuns of his state and ordered them to wear white and get married immediately, and whoever did not obey should have his eyes blotted out and be deported to Cyprus. Al-Zubali congratulated him, saying: I have found in your person a man who loves what I love and carries out all my desires. Al-Zebli confiscated the properties of the monasteries and annexed them to state property. Thus, a large number of monks fled to Italy, southern Russia, the coast of Lebanon, and Palestine. Russian Professor Andreev estimates the number of those who fled to Italy at fifty thousand. The most famous martyr in this period of church history was Stephen the Younger, and from here it was most likely the opinion of the Russian Professor Ouspensky that historians and theologians distorted and distorted the facts when they saw in these incidents a war against icons (Iconomachia), because in reality it was a war against the monks (Monachomachia).

Rome's position: As a result of the violence to which Leo and his son Constantine resorted, the leadership of the Western Church alienated the government of Rome, so it approached the kings of the West to seek their help in repelling the evil of persecution. In the year 751, Pope Zachariah (741-752) issued a fatwa deposing Cleric, King of France, and installing Pepinus. In the year 755, Pepinus sent an army to Italy to fight the Lombards. He made Pope Stephen III (752-757) master of all the Roman provinces in Italy. When Constantine Al-Zebelli asked for these mandates, Pepinus replied that he had given him the throne of Rome out of love for the Apostle Peter, so that his sins would be forgiven. From this distance between Philosophy and the Pope and this rapprochement between the Pope and Pepinus, the seeds of schism were planted in the Church, the seeds that later led to the Great Schism.