The monks were flogged, maimed, killed. In 765, during the burning of the monastery of Pelekita, Lahondracon drove 38 of the brethren into the ruins of ancient baths and covered them alive with earth. In the entire Thracian province there was not a single monastic figure. The emperor was delighted, thanked Lahondracon, and held up an example to others. Having received a report on the exploits of Michael Lahondracon and the money he earned, Constantine issued a merciful rescript: "I have found in you a man after my heart, fulfilling all my desires."

After that, of course, there were imitators of Lahondrakon.

The episcopate followed Caesar in the question of icons, and especially in the "reduction" of a very independent monasticism. But the "work of the sword" was so crude and went so far beyond the convictions of the hierarchy, which did not reject monasticism in principle, that the reaction had to manifest itself. Patriarch Constantine himself, a protégé of the emperor, "lamented". Constantine Copronymus invented for Constantinople and its environs "a universal oath, καθολικον ορκον".

In the square in front of the cross, the Gospel and the Holy Eucharist, everyone had to swear that none of the subjects of the basileus would worship icons. It is not known whether such an oath was actually carried out outside the capital. But Patriarch Constantine had to take a personal part in this rude rite with a special humiliating promise on his patriarchal side. This led Patriarch Constantine into a state of spiritual breakdown and despair. After that moment, it temporarily seemed to roll down an inclined plane. Theophanes reports about the emperor: "He also compelled Constantine, the falsely named patriarch, to ascend to the ambo, to erect an honorable and life-giving tree and to swear that he did not belong to the number of the venerators of icons. Patriarch Constantine fulfilled all this." But the iconoclastic tsar was sadistically furious. According to the chronicler, he "induced the patriarch from a monk to turn into a feaster, decorated with a wreath, to eat meat and listen to the Kyphards at the royal dinner." However, the soul of the bishop could not endure such monasticism. The mockery of monks at the hippodrome and the execution of 19 archons caused him to groan and murmur. Informers still invented additions, and the emperor sent Constantine into exile. In his place was put an even more faceless and obedient man from the "barbarians" - Nikita (about από Σκλαβων - νash countryman?) "ευνούχος".

The barbarian patriarch mercilessly completed the destruction of icons and even mosaics in the patriarchal chambers. The Emperor Constantine continued to rage. The exiled Patriarch Constantine was again summoned to Constantinople on October 6, 767. Here is what the chronicler says: "And the tyrant Constantine tortured him so that he could not walk. The emperor ordered him to be carried on a stretcher and seated on the solea of the great church, and one of the secretaries was there, holding in his hand a scroll with accusations against the former patriarch. By order of the tsar, the charter was read to the assembled people, and after each point the secretary slapped Patriarch Constantine in the face, while the new Patriarch Nikita sat on the cathedra and watched. Then Nicetas, with the hands of other bishops, removed the omophorion from the condemned man, anathematized the Patriarch. Constantine, called him "gloomy" and ordered him to be pushed out of the church backwards. The next day, the unfortunate man was waiting for desecration at the hippodrome. In vain to the tsar's question, "What do you say about our faith and the council that we have assembled?" the unfortunate and contrite Patriarch Constantine said: "It is good that you believe, and you have gathered the council." To this the emperor said with cruelty: "This is what we wanted to hear from your foul lips. After that, the former patriarch was beheaded at the usual place of execution, on the "dog platform – κυνηγιον". The executed man's share was dragged into the pit.

The monastic Greek emigration was enormous. V. G. Vasilevsky gives the following figures for the entire period of iconoclasm. By the 10th century, 200 Greek monasteries had been formed in Calabria. Already in 733, up to a thousand Greek monks gathered near Bari. Dads greeted them affectionately. Pope Gregory III (d. 741) founded the monastery of St. Chrysogonus. Pope Zacharias (d. 752) gave one monastery to Greek nuns. Pope Paul I (d. 767) presented the Greek émigré monks with his own hereditary house and founded the monastery of St. Sylvester in it. Pope Paschal I (died in 824) also gave one monastery to the Greeks. In total, there were at least 50,000 Greek emigrant monks in Italy.

On September 14, 755, Constantine Copronymus died during a campaign against the Bulgarians εν πυρετω - β heat and inflammation. The chroniclers add details of this illness and, in general, characterize Constantine in complete contrast to the opinion of the army, which buried him as its leader and patriot. And the rite of the Sunday of Orthodoxy anathematizes Constantine Copronymus in the following way: "To this lion-named evil beast (i.e. Leo III) to the son, the second iconoclast, a tyrant filthy from his family, and not to the king, to the blasphemer against the Highest, to the scoffer of the Church, to the accursed man, to the word Constantine the Purulent, and to all his mysteries — anathema." In the same spirit are the reviews of the ancient chroniclers. Theophanes writes: "The emperor ended his life, staining himself with the blood of many Christians and the invocation of demons and sacrifices to them (these are allusions to blasphemous feasts) and the persecution of the holy churches and the right and immaculate Virgin, as well as the extermination of monks and the devastation of monasteries. In all malice he prospered no worse than Diocletian and the ancient tyrants." In Amartolus we read: "The king took up arms against the Bulgarians, but when he reached Arcadiopolis, he was struck by an excessively strong and burning fire, so that his legs were strangely charred, and he lay down in bed. Taken to Selymbria and then by water to the fortress of Strongill, the king dies both mentally and physically with these cries: "While still alive I am given over to the unquenchable fire because of the Virgin Mary. But from now on, may She be revered and glorified as the true Mother of God." And when he thus cried out and called upon the Mother of God Mary and, dogmatizing, commanded that She should be venerated as the true Mother of God, the Ever-Virgin, in the midst of such cries with terrible and heavy efforts he vomited out his accursed soul."

Protection of icons outside the empire

Such political persecution of icons, fortunately, was powerless outside the "Orthodox kingdom."

In other Eastern patriarchates, they were completely calm about the artificially stirred up dispute in Byzantium and, on occasion, firmly reacted to attempts to introduce iconoclasm within their borders.

Thus, in 764, Cosmas, bishop of the Syrian city of Epiphania of Apamea, was accused before the Antiochian Patriarch Theodore of having seized church property in the form of sacred vessels in his own favor. Cosmas did not give the vessels under the pretext of denying the icons depicted on them. But Patriarch Theodore, striving to nip this "foreign" heresy in the bud, conspired with his namesake, Patriarch Theodore of Jerusalem and Cosmas of Alexandria. All three of them on the same day – May 13, 764 – at the Liturgy on Pentecost, after the reading of the Gospel, anathematized Cosmas of Epiphania according to one agreed formula. This speech was clearly made in opposition to the iconoclastic council of Constantine Copronymos.

The patriarchs were on the alert against heresy and in their epistles, the synodics, on the occasion of their accession to the cathedras, inserted special points in defense of icons. This explains the subsequent reading of the Synodica of Theodore of Jerusalem at the Seventh Ecumenical Council.

Apparently, this synodikon was then, for the special purpose of protecting icons, supplemented with arguments in favor of their veneration and was sent by the three Eastern patriarchs in solidarity to other autocephalous churches. Thus, on August 12, 767, it was received in Rome, as evidence of the agreement of the patriarchs with the Roman Church on the question of icons. The antipope Constantine II (767-768), who occupied the papal see at that time, sent a synodikon to the Frankish king Pepin, "so that they would know in Gaul about the zeal shown in the East in favor of icons."