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Considering the contemporary sources, the Byzantine iconoclasm appears to have been a moment of rough conflict: first in the facts, between the iconoclast emperor and his opponnents, the patriarch (Constantine) and some prominent monks (Stephen the Younger), then in the texts, between the iconodoules and their foe, the iconoclast emperors. The conflict seems to have been exclusively caused by the problem of representation of God and saints, by the icon and the cult of the icon.
If icons are of course the main point, a more careful reading of the sources makes it clear that iconoclasm was too a conflict between the imperial and the patriarchal power about the authority on the Church. The paper will develop those points.