Page:Constantinople by Brodribb.djvu/124

 But the character of Leo has been blackened by his enemies, the priests. He was an iconoclast.

The worship of pictures and images had become among the common people, and especially among the ignorant monks and the lower classes of the capital, not a superstition grafted on to religion, but the whole of religion. If we imagine what London would be were all her clergy ritualists and all her laity under their control, we may realise what Constantinople was in the time of Leo. Holy pictures to be revered and kissed were hung in all the churches; every house had its saint or its picture. There was no longer any Christ or any God in the minds of Christians, but only for each his favourite saint or his favourite picture. It was not so with those who had travelled among, fought with, or learned the customs of the Saracens. These, chiefly soldiers like Leo, saw with shame the purity of the monotheistic Moslems contrasted with their own paganized Christianity. And one of the earliest reforms of this strong man was the abolition of idolatry. He first ordered the pictures to be raised so high on the walls that they could not be kissed. The islanders of the Archipelago rebelled and sent a fleet with a newly-appointed emperor of their own to attack Constantinople. Leo met these ships with his own and completely destroyed them. He then called a council, which declared against images. The pope excommunicated all iconoclasts. Leo disregarded the excommunication and went on his own way. Rome never afterwards applied to Constantinople for confirmation of a papal election,