In the West

The rejection of iconoclasm here during the time of Constantine Copronymus was caused by the relations of the basileus with the Frankish king Pepin. Constantine demanded of Pepin the return to him of the possessions he had lost (through iconoclastic madness) in Southern Italy, which Pepin had consciously given to the pope. Byzantine ambassadors gave Pepin some "false promises".

Pepin convened a special conference of his nobles and bishops (concilium mixtum) and on behalf of the conference declared allegiance to the pope. And on the question of icons, also raised by the ambassadors of the basileus, Pepin did not even want to talk without the legates of the pope. They were sent for them. When the legates arrived, at Easter 767, Pepin was celebrating Easter in the suburbs of Paris, at the royal dacha at Gentilly, where there are now many dull and dirty factory buildings along the river Vièvre. At the council there were disputes "de sanctorum imaginibus et de Trinitate" ("on sacred images and on the Trinity").

Apparently, in response to the accusation of the Greeks by the legates of the heresy of iconoclasm, the Greeks reproached the Latins, in turn, with the heresy of the filioque. Chronologically, this is the earliest precedent of the controversy about the filioque that exists to this day. The Council spoke in favor of icons, and this made Pope Paul very happy. The epistle of the Eastern patriarchs concerning icons, received about this time, perhaps testifies to the fact that the popes and Pepin had a countermine for the Byzantines in this protest of their Greek brethren.

Emperor Leo IV the Khazar (775-780)

Since iconoclasm was a heresy born of dynastic politics, the changes on the throne dramatically changed the fate of the question of icons. Two contending parties were formed: the so-called "conservatives" (icon-worshippers) and the "liberals" (iconoclasts). The slightest struggle for the throne immediately turned into a game of ecclesiastical questions for the sake of political tasks. Representatives of the ruling dynasty staked on one or the other party. The cruelties of Constantine V Copronymus, of course, did not destroy the moral strength of the icon-worshippers who went "into the catacombs".

On this basis, the large and complex family of Constantine V Copronymus quarreled among themselves. He was married three times. His first wife was the Khazar Irina, the daughter of the kagan. She was baptized for marriage (in 732). From Irene the Khazarka was born in 750 a son, the heir to the throne Leo IV, nicknamed Khazar. This Leo IV at the age of 20 (770) was married to a beautiful and intelligent Athenian woman named Irene.

This Irene in 771 gave birth to Leo IV the Khazar son Constantine, also the future emperor. But the dynastic succession of Constantine Copronymus was complicated by the fact that after the imminent death of his second childless wife, he married for the third time. She gave birth to five sons, the eldest of whom was Nicephorus. The children of the first and third wives of Copronymus were divided among themselves into parties. Irene the Athenian led her husband Leo IV the Khazar after the "conservatives". In spite of them, Nikifor and his brothers leaned on the "liberals". "Conservatism" meant the acceptance of icons, "liberalism" meant their rejection. The cruel iconoclast Constantine V Copronymus, before the marriage of his son Leo the Khazar to the Athenian Irene, took an oath from her that she would not worship icons, to which she was accustomed in Athens. Irina took an oath, but did not change her heart. As soon as her husband, Leo IV the Khazar, became basileus (775), she persuaded him to correct the mistakes of the government of his father, Constantine V. The tactic was that, without breaking with the iconoclasts, from whom Leo IV had received power, he would nevertheless allow the iconoclastic worshippers to exist freely without openly changing the existing iconoclastic laws. In order to gain authority independent of the party among the people (here Irene's advice is clearly visible), Leo IV, using the savings of the state treasury made by his father, reduced taxes and distributed many monetary grants. The tacit permission of monks to return to their places and the veneration of icons to advance to the episcopal cathedras won Leo IV new sympathies of the persecuted. Thus an explosion of gratitude accumulated, which resulted in a popular demonstration at the hippodrome (776), when the crowd demanded that Leo IV proclaim in advance his only son from Irene, five-year-old Constantine (his beloved name), basileus. Leo did not believe in the stability of the sympathies of the crowd and especially did not believe in the stability of hereditary rights to the throne. He frankly said to the crowd: "When I die, you will find yourself another ruler, and you will kill my son, precisely because he is a pretender." Leo preferred that his first-born son live, even if he was a private person, than lose his head for the name of the heir. But in the end he decided to do so and crowned his son, Constantine VI. Although they received the titles of Caesars, the eldest of them, Nicephorus, nevertheless soon became involved in the conspiracy of the iconoclastic party against Leo the Khazar, was convicted of this and exiled to Chersonesos. Perhaps this conspiracy nevertheless frightened Leo and pushed him to please the Iconoclastic party a little. And this, in turn, upset his relationship with his wife Irina, who, just the opposite, was getting closer and closer to the opposing party. A very indicative symptom of the unstable equilibrium of these two divergent aspirations of husband and wife was their choice of a new patriarch to replace the iconoclastic Patriarch Nicetas, who died in 780. Irene was pleased with Paul. But Leo also agreed to it, for Paul, after some hesitation, gave Leo a written oath that he would not venerate icons. The chronicler Theophanes writes: "Paul, an honest reader, a Cypriot by birth, shining in word and deed, after many refusals, in view of the rule of heresy, is forcibly ordained Patriarch of Constantinople." He signed at the consecration "not to worship icons – μη προσκυνειν εικονας".

Everything was ambiguous and unreliable. The iconoclastic party conducted its own investigation and suggested to Lev that his wife was betraying him, that a party of icon-worshippers was being organized around her. A search was carried out, and two icons were found in Irina's bed, of which six high-ranking officials of the court were accused. Irene was accused of breaking the oath to her late father-in-law Constantine Copronymus and removed from the court, and six dignitaries were shaved, imprisoned and then tonsured into monasticism (a kind of mocking punishment). In the autumn of the same year, Leo IV died suddenly of malignant tumors (ανθρακες, κarbuncles?). Theophanes relates: "Being a great lover of precious stones, Leo burned with a desire to have the crown of Maurice, took it from the St. Sophia church and put it on himself at the royal exit. But on the way back his head turned terribly black. Being seized and stricken with a severe inflammation, he vomited out his soul, paying for the sacrilege." There is an assumption that the crown lay on the head of the dead Emperor Heraclius (Dorotheus of Monemvasia calls it the crown of Heraclius) and was removed from the head of the deceased many weeks after the funeral, during the opening of the coffin, with part of the skin of the decomposed corpse. That's where the cadaver poison comes from.

New historians, depicting Irina's character in the darkest tones, make an assumption, however, not documented by anything, that Irina deliberately poisoned her husband by this.

The reign of Irene together with her son Constantine VI (780-790)