ABSTRACT
As far as the 'Restoration of Orthodoxy' goes, there are just two facts whose reality is not open to question: at Theophilos's death, in January 842, there is a Patriarch, John, and a functioning 'Home Synod', both iconoclast. Then, at some date previous to the first Sunday in Lent 843, everything has changed: John has been deposed, and his place taken by the saint and confessor Methodios, a famous fighter against Iconoclasm. The iconoclast synod seems to have disappeared. The popularity of the iconoclast emperors with the masses is unquestionable, but surely not theologically based. The sincerity of Ioannikios' icon veneration is attested less by his role in the Restoration, than by, e.g., his letter to the iconoclast bishop Inger, warning him that he will soon die, and begging him not to lose the reward of his virtuous life by dying an iconoclast. An important point is that, 'reconciliation' would almost necessarily mean that Methodios was enthroned by the synod.
