By the early 8th century so great an importance had accrued to the depiction of the saintly and divine forms that one body of opinion in the state feared the population was in danger of lapsing into idolatry. As a countermeasure, a decree forbidding representation of saintly or divine forms in religious art was promulgated, and from about 717 until 843 there reigned emperors who are called Iconoclasts. To most of them, representation of the saintly or divine in religious art was genuinely anathema. In spite of the ban, pictorial decoration was not in itself forbidden. The church of Ayía ...(100 of 73439 words)