The East Roman state, shrunken by the Slavic invasions and Islamic conquests of the seventh and eighth centuries, survives as a recognizable entity, grounded more firmly than ever in the Balkans and Asia Minor.

The Seventh Ecumenical Council, at the urging of Empress Irene, and with the support of Pope Adrian and Patriarch Nikephoros, representing seventeen-year-old Emperor Constantine VI, effectively ends the Eastern church's policy of iconoclasm in declaring that, whereas the veneration of images must be carefully distinguished from the worship due God alone, the practice is legitimate and the intercession of saints efficacious.