THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
IRENE: Byzantine empress; b. at Athens 752; d. in Lesbos Aug. 9, 803. In 769 she married Leo, afterward Leo IV., and, upon his death in 780, she became regent during the minority of Constantine VI. The first years of her regency were marked by disastrous wars against the Arabians, to whom she was forced to pay annual tribute. In the iconoclastic controversies of the time (see Images and Image-Worship, II.) she had secretly been favorable to images even during Leo's lifetime, and after his death she set herself to reverse the iconoclastic legislation of Constantine V. Accordingly, having gained control of the Eastern Church by judicious appointments to bishoprics, she called the seventh ecumenical council to meet at Constantinople in 786. Owing to the iconoclastic zeal of the soldiers here the council was transferred to Nicsea in 787, and image-worship was then reestablished without opposition (see Nic^ea, Councils of). In 790 the government was wrested from Irene by her son, Constantine VI., but by 792 she was again in power, ruling conjointly with Constantine. After five years of secret warfare between mother and son, Irene finally gained the upper hand and had Constantine blinded and thrown into a dungeon in 797. Her own extravagant reign came to an end in 802, when she was overthrown by Nicephorus and banished to the Isle of Lesbos. Here she earned a meager living by spinning. At the time of her fall she was negotiating a marriage with Charlemagne, with a view to uniting the Eastern with the Western Empire. Her services in the interest of imageworship won her the position of a saint in the Greek Church. Her day is Aug. 15.
Bibliography: Gibbon, Decline and Fall, v. 191-192; KL, ri. 873; Krumbacher, Geschichte, pp. 99, 964-965, 1074; Ceillier, Auteurs sacret, xii. 135-136, xiii. 619, 628.
IRION, PAUL: German Evangelical Synod; b. near Marthasville, Mo., Oct. 28, 1860. He was educated at Blackburn University, Carlinville, 111. (1873-75), Washington University, St. Louis, Mo. (1875-76), Elmhurst College, Elmhurst, 111. (A.B., 1879), and Missouri College, near Marthasville, Mo. (1882). In 1882 he was ordained to the ministry, and after being assistant pastor of St. John's Evangelical Church, Michigan City, Ind., from March to June, 1882, and of Bethel Evangelical Church, Freedom Township, Mich., from June to Nov., 1882, then full pastor, and is now pastor of St. John's, Michigan City, Ind. From 1888 to 1895 he was secretary of the Michigan district of his denomination, of which he is, theologically, an orthodox member, and in 1890 was the official compiler of the census for the Evangelical Synod. He has also been president of the Michigan district of the German Evangelical Synod since 1895.
IRISH ARTICLES: The Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England were not introduced in Ireland till the time of Charles I. In their place a shorter collection of eleven articles was published in 1566 by authority of the deputy and the archbishops and bishops. At the first convocation of the Irish Episcopal Church (1613-15) a series of 104 articles was adopted and approved by the deputy in 1615, which was probably composed by James
Ussher, then at the head of the theological faculty in Dublin (afterward archbishop of Armagh) . They are important as proving the decided Calvinism of the Irish Church at that time, and still more so as the connecting link between the Thirty-nine Articles and the Westminster Confession, and as the chief source of the latter, "as is evident from the general order, the headings of chapters and subdivisions, and the almost literal agreement of language in the statement of several of the most important doctrines." By a decree of the convocation, the teaching of any doctrine contrary to these articles was forbidden. But the Irish convocation of 1635, under the lead of the Earl of Strafford, lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and his chaplain, John Bramhall, formally adopted the Thirty-nine Articles, and quietly ignored the others. Archbishop Ussher required subscription to both. Eventually, however, the Irish articles were lost sight of, and no mention was made of them, when, in the beginning of the nineteenth century, the United Church of England and Ireland was organized.
Bibliography: P. Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, i. 662-665, iii. 526-544, New York, 1877; T. Olden, The Church of Ireland, 323-324, 342-344, 352-354, London, 1892.
IRISH SISTERS OF CHARITY. See English Ladies.
IRREGULARITY: In canon law, a defect or impediment which excludes a person otherwise qualified from due reception or exercise of holy orders. Canonists divide these into two classes, irregularities through defect and through fault. Under the former come (1) those through natal defects, affecting all who are not born of a legitimate or at least a putative marriage, and removable by subsequent legitimation or by taking monastic vows. (2) Through bodily defects, affecting those whom illness or mutilation has rendered incapable of performing sacred functions, or of performing them without lowering the dignity of the office or giving offense to the people. (3) Through defects in age, when the canonical age (q.v.) has not been attained.
(4) Through defects in knowledge, when the requisite knowledge for the order in question is lacking.
(5) Through defects of faith, affecting neophytes and those not yet confirmed, who are presumably insufficiently established in the faith. (6) Through sacramental defects, arising from certain conditions in regard to a previous marriage of the candidate. (7) Ex defectu per/ectae lenitatis, attaching to those who (though in a lawful way) have contributed to the death or maiming of a fellow-man, such as soldiers, criminal judges, prosecutors, jurymen, or witnesses, but not physicians and surgeons. (8) Through defects in reputation. (9) Through defects in the matter of liberty, preventing the ordination of slaves without their masters' consent, married men without that of their wives, or guardians and trustees before release from their obligations. Irregularity through faults occurs as a consequence of criminal acts publicly known or proved before a court, or of certain misdeeds, even if not known; the latter include the killing or maiming of another person, heresy, apostasy, abuse of the sacraments of baptism or orders; and the same effect is pro-