Phi Alpha Theta Gamma Rho Chapter of Wichita State University
Abstract
"Ever since the dawn of history, when man first became a religious animal and almost simultaneously—give or take a millennium or two—made his first clumsy attempts at adorning the walls of his cave, he has had to face one fundamental question: is art the ally of religion, or its most insidious enemy?"1 This question, precisely posed by historian John Julius Norwich in his trilogy on the Byzantine Empire, came to the fore in the seventh and eighth centuries during the Byzantine iconoclastic2 controversy: Are icons the friend or foe of Christianity
