According to the written sources, the Iconoclast controversy was all about the veneration of icons. It started in the late seventh century, after most iconodule provinces had been lost to Byzantine rule, and lasted until the turn of the millennium or so, when icon veneration became generally established in the remaining parts of the Byzantine Empire. However, as far as material evidence and actual images are concerned, the Iconoclast controversy centred on apse images and other, equally large and monumental representations, (...) none of which were ever venerated. Prior to Iconoclasm, such images had not been customary at Constantinople, where the early Christian tradition had been largely aniconic and focused on the symbol of the cross. Thus, the introduction of monumental Christian imagery to Constantinople appears to have been a major aspect of the Iconoclast controversy. This paper asks why and finds that the images in question, whilst not for veneration and therefore not essential to the theological debate, stood out for imperial propaganda. They led to close visual integration of the emperor and the church that had previously been kept apart, because aniconic traditions used to limit imperial presence inside Constantinopolitan church buildings. It seems, then, that the Iconoclast controversy, although conducted in religious terms, was partly driven by a hidden agenda of imperial appropriation and power play. (shrink)

The Erlöserkirche at Bad Homburg was built between 1903 and 1908 at the instigation of Kaiser Wilhelm II. It combines a neo-Romanesque exterior with Norman-Sicilian mosaics inside. Both were „Germanic“ to the emperor, and the church embodied his all encompassing claim to the tradition of the medieval Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. Alternatively, the contemporary Byzantinist Ernst Gerland pointed to a Byzantine origin of the Norman-Sicilian models (and thus subtly contradicted the „pan-Germanic“ myth). This „Byzantine“ reading has prevailed (...) ever since, but does not stand up to scrutiny. It only serves to obscure the „pan-Germanic“ concept of the church. This contribution restores the „Germanic“ understanding and makes the point that the latter must be acknowledged in order to make proper sense of the church’s art and architecture, but also in order to face (rather than to downplay and conveniently forget) the racist-chauvinist character of German imperialism. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Millennium Jahrgang: 11 Heft: 1 Seiten: 261-288.