HELENA AND IRENE

[1Sidenote: [775-787 A.D.]]

2A female had been the principal mover in the great change of Christianity from a purely spiritual worship to that paganising form of religion which grew up with such rapidity in the succeeding centuries; a female was the restorer of images in the East, which have since, with but slight interruption, maintained their sanctity. The first, Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great, was a blameless and devout woman, who used the legitimate influence of her station, munificence, and authority over her imperial son, to give that splendour which to her piety appeared becoming to the new religion; to communicate to the world all those excitements of symbols, relics, and sacred memorials which she found so powerful in kindling her own devotion. The second, the empress Irene, wife to the son and heir of Constantine Copronymus, an ambitious, intriguing, haughty princess, never lost sight of political power in the height of her religious zeal, and was at length guilty of the most atrocious crime against God and womanhood.

3Irene, during the reign of her husband Leo, surnamed the Khazar, did not openly betray her inclination to the image-worship which she had solemnly forsworn under her father-in-law Constantine. On his death (780) she at once seized the government in the name of her son Constantine, who was but ten years old. Her creature, Patriarch Tarasius, summoned a council on image-worship.

4The council met in Constantinople (785), but with the army and a large part of the populace of Constantinople image-worship had lost its power. The soldiery, attached to the memory and tenets of Constantine Copronymus, broke into the assembly, and dispersed the affrighted monks and bishops.