Idolatry

[seeking.IAM]

Actually literacy in the Christian East was much higher than in Western Europe during the Dark Ages, and the use of icons has only increased along with literacy in the Orthodox world, so the idea that the icons are some sort of visual substitute for reading the Bible, aside from being entirely contradicted by the Iconodule fathers like St. John of Damascus and the Seventh Ecumenical Council, is also debunked

Interesting. That is different information than I have from other Orthodox sources. What about the Bible in the hands of the common man during the dark ages, when copies were generated at the hand of scribes?

 

[RileyG]

Icons place in history is partially due to the fact of low literacy rates among early Christians and the lack of wide dissemination of Biblical texts before the advent of the printing press. Icons depicted the Christian story when literacy and written texts were in short supply. It is no surprise, then, that our Orthodox friends talking about "writing" Icons, not drawing them.

Yes. That is also why stained glass windows were used in the west because many of the faithful were illiterate.