Power is something that everyone craves and desires to have for their own benefit or to help others. The leaders among people hold a great deal of that power, and are forced to compete with each other or make compromises if they want more power. Around the time between 700 A.D and 900 A.D, the church was an influential source of power that was constantly gaining it. The emperors of the Byzantine Empire were also an influential power who still wanted more power. The pressing strength of the church was looming over them, and the emperors felt that a way they could gain more power would be to take over the church and control it. This lead up to the first and second Byzantine Iconoclasm. An iconoclasm literally means image-breaking. This iconoclasm was the emperors banning and destroying all of the images, icons, statues, or any other form of representation other than the Holy Eucharist in the church and anyone who defended those images. Although there were two iconoclasms, they played out almost exactly the same, with the emperors and the Popes taking the same actions and it being resolved by an empress ending the conflicts by restoring the images. One of the main differences in it was that the second time around was the end of it. The emperors of the Byzantine Empire attempted to gain power through subjugating and controlling the church by using the iconoclasms.
The most powerful entity of the Iconoclast movement was the highest in the Byzantine Empire’s government, the emperor. A threat to the overall strength of his empire was the catholic church. The church was more for power at the time and made people provide them to make themselves the main power. A strong point of the church were the pictures and artwork made by people to pr...
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...antine Empire saw the potential of the church and the threat to their power it posed, so the way that they could remove the threat and bolster their own power would be to take over the church through the Iconoclasms.
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The Reformation was a decisive period in the history not only for the Catholic Church, but also for the entire world. The causes of this tumultuous point in history did not burst on the scene all at once, but slowly gained momentum like a boil that slowly festers through time before it finally bursts open. The Reformation of the Church was inevitable because of the abuses which the Church was suffering during this period. At the time of the Reformation, a segment of the Church had drifted away from its mission to bring Christ and salvation to the world. Throughout the Middle Ages, the Church had gradually become weaker because of abusive leadership, philosophical heresy, and a renewal of a form of the Pelagian heresy.
The Roman Catholic Church had complete influence over the lives of everyone in medieval society, including their beliefs and values. The Church’s fame in power and wealth had provided them with the ability to make their own laws and follow their own social hierarchy. With strong political strength in hand, the Church could even determine holidays and festivals. It gained significant force in the arts, education, religion, politics as well as their capability to alter the feudal structure through their wealth and power. The Church was organised into a hierarchical system that sustained the Church’s stability and control over the people and lower clergy, by organising them into different groups.
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Byzantine art had many basic characteristics. The first was expressionistic using color and emotion. Many of the are lacked depth in a two dimensional fashion. The art was symbolic in nature, decorative, detailed. The figures are stiff and ...
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