The Triumph of Orthodoxy (843)

The final restoration of the icons under the Empress Theodora on the First Sunday of Great Lent, 11 March 843, ended the second iconoclasm for good and has been commemorated ever since as the Triumph of Orthodoxy. This file treats the event, the Synodikon of Orthodoxy read annually on that Sunday, and how “the Triumph of Orthodoxy” came to name not only the defeat of iconoclasm but the integrity of the whole Orthodox faith.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox

The Restoration

The second iconoclasm, revived by Leo V in 815, ended with the death of the emperor Theophilus in January 842. His widow, the Empress Theodora, became regent for their infant son Michael III, and — being herself an iconophile — moved with the deposed iconophiles to restore the veneration of icons definitively. The iconoclast Patriarch John the Grammarian was replaced by the iconophile Methodius, a synod in early 843 reaffirmed the doctrine of Nicaea II, and on the First Sunday of Great Lent, traditionally dated to 11 March 843, a solemn procession restored the holy icons to the church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (Jean Gouillard, “Le Synodikon de l’Orthodoxie,” Travaux et Mémoires 2, 1967; Patricia Karlin-Hayter, “Icon Veneration,” in Byzantine Orthodoxies, 2006; Warren Treadgold, A History of the Byzantine State and Society, Stanford, 1997). Unlike the restoration of 787, this one proved permanent: no Byzantine emperor thereafter attempted to abolish the icons, and the year 843 marks the definitive close of the entire iconoclast controversy (see The Second Iconoclasm and the Triumph).

The restoration was from the first understood as a “triumph” — a victory of orthodoxy over heresy — and the day was instituted as an annual commemoration, the Sunday of Orthodoxy, kept on the First Sunday of the Great Fast (Gouillard, “Le Synodikon,” 1967). Theodora herself is venerated for the restoration, and a tradition of the day holds that she interceded with the assembled fathers for her late iconoclast husband Theophilus, seeking that he not be condemned by name — a story belonging to the hagiography of the restoration whose historicity is uncertain (see The Second Iconoclasm and the Triumph) [Disputed: the “pardon of Theophilus” is preserved in later, legend-tinged accounts of 843 and is reported as a tradition of the feast rather than as documented fact (Karlin-Hayter, in Byzantine Orthodoxies, 2006)].

The Synodikon of Orthodoxy

The liturgical heart of the feast is the Synodikon of Orthodoxy, a text composed for the restoration of 843 and read solemnly on the Sunday of Orthodoxy ever since. The Synodikon proclaims “eternal memory” (aionia he mneme) to the champions of orthodoxy — the defenders of the icons, the iconophile emperors and patriarchs and confessors — and “anathema” to the heresiarchs and their errors, above all to the iconoclasts (Synodikon of Orthodoxy; critical edition Jean Gouillard, “Le Synodikon de l’Orthodoxie,” Travaux et Mémoires 2, 1967: 1–316). Among its anathemas against iconoclasm is the condemnation of “those who apply the sayings of divine Scripture that are directed against idols to the venerable icons of Christ our God and His saints” — the charge, that is, that the iconoclasts had confused idols with icons (Synodikon, in Gouillard, 1967; cf. the hub essay Icons and Iconoclasm).

The Synodikon is not a fixed text but a living one. Composed in 843, it grew over the following centuries by the addition of new names to be praised and new errors to be anathematized — most notably the condemnation of John Italos in the eleventh century and the affirmation of the Palamite councils of the fourteenth, so that the Synodikon came to encapsulate the whole span of Byzantine doctrinal definition, not iconoclasm alone; its exact wording therefore varies by recension and local use (Gouillard, “Le Synodikon,” 1967, on the layered composition; see The Seven Ecumenical Councils). In this way the annual reading of the Synodikon became a recital of the Orthodox faith as such — a public renewal, once a year, of the Church’s confession and of her rejection of the heresies she has defined against.

Why “the Triumph of Orthodoxy”

The name of the feast repays attention. The event of 843 was, narrowly, the restoration of the icons; but the Church did not call it “the Triumph of the Icons.” It called it the Triumph of Orthodoxy — because in the mind of the Byzantine Church the defense of the icon was inseparable from the defense of the Incarnation, and so from the whole of the orthodox faith (Ouspensky, Theology of the Icon, SVS Press, 1992, vol. 1; Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Church, Penguin, 1993, on the significance of the feast). To confess the icon of Christ is to confess that God truly became visible man; to deny it is to touch the reality of the Incarnation. The iconophiles therefore saw in the victory over iconoclasm the vindication not of a devotional practice but of the entire dogmatic structure — the Trinity, the Incarnation, the two natures — that the icon presupposes and expresses (Ware, The Orthodox Church, 1993). This is why the feast could grow, through the expanding Synodikon, into a commemoration of orthodoxy in general, and why it stands at the threshold of Great Lent as the Church’s yearly reaffirmation of what she believes.

The Triumph of Orthodoxy thus completes the arc that runs from the Incarnation, through the crisis of iconoclasm and the defenses of John of Damascus and Theodore the Studite, to the definition of Nicaea II — and seals it in the Church’s liturgical year. The doctrine of the icon, twice defined (787) and finally restored (843), became from that point a permanent and constitutive feature of Orthodox Christianity: not a permitted decoration but a confession of the faith, celebrated every year with a procession of icons and the recital of the Synodikon (Gouillard, “Le Synodikon,” 1967; Ouspensky, Theology of the Icon, vol. 1). The rest of this collection — the canons of iconography, the major types, the icon in worship and life — unfolds within the space this settled doctrine secured.

See Also

• The Second Iconoclasm and the Triumph — the events leading to 843
• The Seventh Ecumenical Council (787) — the definition the Triumph made permanent
• Veneration, the Iconostasis, and the Icon Corner — the living practice the feast secures
• The Seven Ecumenical Councils — the councils the Synodikon came to encapsulate
• Orthodoxy: Icons and Iconoclasm — the hub essay this collection expands

References

• Gouillard, Jean. “Le Synodikon de l’Orthodoxie: édition et commentaire.” Travaux et Mémoires 2 (1967): 1–316. (The critical edition and study of the Synodikon; its layered composition; the anathemas against iconoclasm.)
• Karlin-Hayter, Patricia. “Icon Veneration: Significance of the Restoration of Orthodoxy?” In Byzantine Orthodoxies, ed. Andrew Louth and Augustine Casiday. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006. (The events of 843; the “pardon of Theophilus.”)
• Ouspensky, Leonid. Theology of the Icon. 2 vols. Trans. Anthony Gythiel. Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1992. (The theological meaning of the Triumph.)
• Ware, Kallistos. The Orthodox Church. New ed. London: Penguin, 1993. (The feast and its significance.)
• Treadgold, Warren. A History of the Byzantine State and Society. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997. (Theodora, Methodius, and the restoration of 843.)