Irina Athenskaya - Cesarzowa z Bizancjum
As a result of the conspiracy on August 15, 797, by the order of the mother, the Emperor Constantine VI was captured and blinded. With his death, the Isaurian dynasty broke off and Irina Athenskaya, who became the first autocrat of Byzantium, ascended to the throne.
Possession of a woman with an imperial title questioned the legitimacy of her authority, became a formal reason for the Vatican to transfer the imperial title of the King of the Franks and Langobards to Karl the Great.
Since childhood, pious and brought up in the tradition of veneration of icons, Irina as a regent with a young Constantine VI, almost immediately began the persecution of iconoclasts.
Five Lev brothers were tonsured into monks, which deprived them of the right to succession to the throne, in 784 the Patriarch of Constantinople was forced to abdicate the patriarchate. In 787, the Ecumenical Council was officially convened at Nicaea on the initiative of Irina, officially restored the veneration of icons.
Having removed her son from power, Irina began to exalt herself "Irina, the great basileus and autocrat of the Romans." However, the legitimacy of her power was questioned by the papal throne, since the woman could not command the army and, accordingly, could not be the empress, and on December 25, 800 Pope Leo III proclaimed the emperor of the Franks and the Lombards of Charlemagne.
Irina Afinskaya was deported to the island of Lesbos, where she died on August 9, 803. Thanks to her zealous struggle for the veneration of icons by the Orthodox Church, Irina was proclaimed a saint, but she was never canonized.
Possession of a woman with an imperial title questioned the legitimacy of her authority, became a formal reason for the Vatican to transfer the imperial title of the King of the Franks and Langobards to Karl the Great.
Since childhood, pious and brought up in the tradition of veneration of icons, Irina as a regent with a young Constantine VI, almost immediately began the persecution of iconoclasts.
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Five Lev brothers were tonsured into monks, which deprived them of the right to succession to the throne, in 784 the Patriarch of Constantinople was forced to abdicate the patriarchate. In 787, the Ecumenical Council was officially convened at Nicaea on the initiative of Irina, officially restored the veneration of icons.
Having removed her son from power, Irina began to exalt herself "Irina, the great basileus and autocrat of the Romans." However, the legitimacy of her power was questioned by the papal throne, since the woman could not command the army and, accordingly, could not be the empress, and on December 25, 800 Pope Leo III proclaimed the emperor of the Franks and the Lombards of Charlemagne.
Irina Afinskaya was deported to the island of Lesbos, where she died on August 9, 803. Thanks to her zealous struggle for the veneration of icons by the Orthodox Church, Irina was proclaimed a saint, but she was never canonized.
