John VII of Constantinople

By 814 John had become an iconoclast, and Emperor Leo V the Armenian chose him to head a committee to collect patristic texts supporting this theological position in preparation for the Synod of 815, which reinstated iconoclasm.

John was rewarded for his efforts by being appointed abbot of the prestigious monastery of Sergius and Bacchus (now the Little Hagia Sophia), where recalcitrant iconodules were re-educated.

John was known for his learning (hence his nickname Grammatikos) and for his persuasive rhetoric in the endless debates that are a favorite subject of hagiographic sources reflecting the second period of the Iconoclasm.

John was also charged with tutoring the future Emperor Theophilos during the reign of his father, Michael II, and is credited with instilling strong iconoclastic sympathies in his pupil.

He did, however, bring back a plan of the Abbasid palace in Baghdad for his emperor's amusement, and oversaw the construction of a similar structure in Bithynia.

This page of the iconodule Chludov Psalter illustrates the line "They gave me gall to eat; and when I was thirsty they gave me vinegar to drink" with a picture of a soldier offering Christ vinegar on a sponge attached to a pole. John VII of Constantinople is depicted rubbing out a painting of Christ with a similar sponge attached to a pole. John VII is caricatured, here as on other pages, with untidy straight hair sticking out in all directions, which was considered ridiculous by the Byzantines.