What was the iconoclast controversy about?

Byzantine society of the eighth and ninth centuries experienced a vigorous and often violent dispute over the status of holy icons. 'Iconoclasts' were deeply suspicious of any pictorial representations of Christ, the Mother of God, and the saints, and they therefore unleashed a wave of persecution against the use of religious images, while 'iconophiles' fiercely defended the veneration of icons as an integral element of the life of the church. The extent and magnitude of this controversy indicates that it was more than a mere dispute over competing conceptions of religious art. A number of deeper issues and concerns were at play, and in this paper I seek to uncover some of these underlying concerns and hidden agendas. In particular, I argue that the opposing factions in the iconoclast crisis were, at bottom, concerned with issues relating to salvation, power, idolatry, tradition, and access to the divine.