And than reviving iconoclasm and destroying the golden throne? Heres... well... you know the deal.
Destroying the Golden Throne?!
Dude, do you really think Bubba has a problem with the Emperor being called God's Regent on the earth? No, not at all, because the Angeloi have constantly proved that they are not only worthy of their title, but that all else are unworthy. Remember, in this day and age, even the most humanist men were deists at their most radical. No one denied that God (or a god or gods) existed, and they all agree that rulers are blessed. Bubba believes that the Angeloi are blessed by God and, like any good Roman, he believes that only the Angeloi will protect him and Christianity from being raped and murdered by the Xenoi.
I said that he has Iconoclast
bents, not that he is Iconoclast. His only objection to icons are when people pray to them as if they can somehow answer prayers. Icons, to Bubba, are decorations and symbols that are made to remind us of great Christians of the past and inspire us to be mroe like them. They are only holy because the Church is holy. That's why the Church has saints: some men lived such exemplary lives that their names are remembered forever.
Bubba sees saints as holy role models and heroes to look up to. He does not see them as divine or to be prayed to.
(Interestingly, RL Orthodoxy doesn't make much of a deal about praying to Mary and the saints, and doesn't really see them as interceders. One reason- among many, such as the Trinity and the authority of the Patriarchs -that the Great Schism broke was because the Catholic Church was seen as more decadent and scholarly compared to the spiritual Orthodox church. Remember, Orthodox theology is a lot more like Protestants than Catholics when it comes to their opinions on the Bible and the saints, and they did not side with the Catholics in the Reformation. I am a Southern Baptist in RL, and I have strongly considered switching to the Orthodox denomination. One of my former pastors told me that I was right when I said that Orthodox theology is ssimilar to Baptist theology as far as matters on the Bible and the saints go, but, of course, the Orthodox Church has a clergy hiearchy and practices Apolistic Succession. As I've been told, Orthodoxy is the ceremony and structure of the Catholics and the spirituality and theology of the Protestants.)
(I am still doing my research, though. I don't live near an Orthodox church, so I can't actually ask them.)