Page:The Greek and Eastern churches.djvu/234

208 possession of the clergy of their own party. Even that mild action—a trifle in comparison with the tyrannical persecution by Constantine Copronymus—provoked violent opposition on the part of the monks. The soldiers retaliated. A riotous body of men from the army broke into the patriarchal palace at Constantinople and destroyed the sacred pictures that adorned its walls. Passion was rising to fever-heat on both sides. Then, much against his inclination, Leo found it necessary to take action. He deposed the patriarch Nicephorus—a deed for which we may be selfishly grateful, since it gave this leading actor in the events of his times leisure to write his history. The emperor appointed a layman Theodotus Mellissenus to the vacant post; and he summoned what he wished to be regarded as a general council at Constantinople ( 816), which confirmed the decision of the earlier iconoclastic council in the same city (that held 754), condemned image worship, and anathematised the patriarchs Tarasius and Nicephorus and all image worshippers. Recalcitrant clergy were to be deposed; but there were few such, for most submitted. We have seen that this was the normal practice in the Byzantine Empire. Now again, as on previous occasions, the stubborn opposition came from the independent monks, not from the demure State-endowed and State-regulated clergy.

Leo was rewarded for his vigorous reforms in the civil service by assassination, and was succeeded by one of the conspirators, a trusted friend—Michael, nicknamed "the Stammerer" (a.d. 820). This emperor was tolerant towards both parties, since he wished to be conciliatory, although he leaned towards the iconoclastic policy. He died in the year 829, and was succeeded by Theophilus, who at first followed the same line of policy, but three years after his accession issued a decree prohibiting image worship, which was executed in some instances with much harshness. Lazarus, a famous painter, was imprisoned