Power is something everyone craves and wishes to have for their own benefit or to help others. Leaders among the people hold much of that power and are forced to compete with each other or compromise if they want more power. In the period between 700 and 900 AD, the church was an influential and steadily gaining source of power. The emperors of the Byzantine Empire were also an influential power that wanted even more power. The pressing force of the church loomed over them, and the emperors felt that one way to gain more power would be to seize the church and control it. This led to the first and second Byzantine iconoclasms. An iconoclasm literally means image breaking. This iconoclasm consisted of the emperors banning and destroying all images, icons, statues or any other form of representation other than the Holy Eucharist in the church and anyone who defended those images. Although there were two iconoclasms, they unfolded in almost exactly the same way, with the emperors and Popes taking the same actions and being resolved by an empress who ended the conflicts by restoring the images. One of the main differences was that the second time marked the end. The emperors of the Byzantine Empire attempted to gain power by subjugating and controlling the church using iconoclasm. The most powerful entity in the iconoclastic movement was the highest in government of the Byzantine Empire, the emperor. One threat to the overall strength of his empire was the Catholic church. The church was more in favor of power at that time and forced people to provide it to them to become the main power. A strength of the church was the images and works of art made by people by means of paper ...... The ancient Empire saw the potential of the church and the threat to their power which it represented, so the The way they could remove the threat and strengthen their power would be to take control of the church through the Iconoclasms. Works Cited Brubaker, Leslie. Inventing Byzantine iconoclasm. London: Bristol Classical Press, 2012. Print.Fortescue, Adrian. "Iconoclasm". The Catholic Encyclopedia. vol. 7. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. May 8, 2014Halsall, Paul. “Sourcebooks Project on the History of the Internet.” Internet history textbook project. Fordham University, nd Web. May 11, 2014. Halsall, Paul. “Sourcebooks Project on the History of the Internet.” Internet history textbook project. Fordham University, nd Web. 11 May 2014.