human form. The incarnation, according to the Eastern Orthodox, not only justifies icons but mandates them; to contend otherwise is to question the reality of the incarnation, implying that the Son’s humanity is not permanently and eternally real. It also supposes that the spiritual and material are in opposition. The iconoclasts, for their part, insisted that icons were idolatrous and were forbidden by the second commandment. Indeed, they claimed that the loss of the eastern territories to Islam