a immediately began
to undo the iconoclastic policy of her deceased husband; and as her
successors continued her policy, the regency of Theodora marks the end
of iconoclasm and the permanent establishment of image worship in the
churches of the East, as of the West.

Within the first month of the commencement of the new reign, images had
appeared once more in the churches of Constantinople, and the banished
image worshippers were recalled from their places of exile. John the
Grammarian, the patriarch who had served Theophilus, was deposed because
he refused to convoke a synod for the repeal of iconoclastic decrees,
and Methodius was appointed in his stead. A council of the church was
held the same year at Constantinople, composed largely of the lately
exiled bishops, abbots, and monks who had distinguished themselves as
confessors in the cause of image worship. All the prominent bishops who
had held iconoclastic opinions were expelled from their sees, and their
places were filled by the orthodox. The practices and doctrines of the
Iconoclasts were formally anathematized and banished forever from the
orthodox church.

While the synod was being held, in the heart of Theodora a conflict was
going on between her love of image worship and her affection for her
deceased husband. She did not waver in her zeal for the orthodox church,
but she did dread to think of her husband as consigned, as a heretic, to
the pangs of hell. Consequently, she presented herself one day to the
assembled clergy, and requested the passage of a decree to the effect
that her deceased husband's sins had all been pardoned by the Church,
and that divine grace had effaced the record of his persecutions of the
saints. Deep dissatisfaction showed itself on the faces of all the
clergy when she made this singular request, and when they hesitated to
speak she uttered, with innocent frankness, a mild threat that if they
did not act favorably on her petition, she would not exert her influence
as regent to give them the victory over the Iconoclasts, but would leave
the affairs of the Church in their present status. The patriarch
Methodius finally found his voice to tell her that the Church could use
its office to release the souls of orthodox princes from the pains of
hell, but unfortunately the prayers of the Church were of no avail in
obtaining forgiveness from God for those who died without the pale of
orthodoxy; that the Church was intrusted with the keys o