What are religious icons? Describe their purpose, development, and the beliefs surrounding them within the context of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Why did Byzantine rulers like Leo III and his successors develop the movement known as "iconoclasm." What were the characteristics and major events of this movement? How did iconoclastic thought in Western Europe lead to a break between the Latin and Greek branches of the Catholic Church?

An icon is a representation of Christ, the Mother of God, saints or feasts.  Icons belong to the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches and are inseparable from the ecclesiastical and spiritual life of these churches and their believers.

Icons are painted on a wooden panel. When painting certain rules must be taken into account. These rules are contained in the painters' books (the so-called canon) and are intended to ensure purity and uniformity and not to deviate from the teachings of the Church.

The painting of icons is within the Eastern Orthodox Church a work for which God's blessing is requested; it is usually accompanied by prayer. Nowadays an icon is usually no longer signed, unless it is added to the painter's name by hand, as is usual with Greeks. Icons originated mainly in countries where Christianity in the form of Eastern Orthodoxy is the religion, such as Greece, Russia, the Balkans, Eastern Europe and also Egypt and Ethiopia.

spread of christianity