Legacy
Irene reigned for five years, from 797 to 802. Pope Leo III, who needed help against enemies in Rome and who saw the throne of the Byzantine Emperor as vacant (lacking a male occupant), crowned Charlemagne as Roman Emperor in 800. This was seen as an insult to Eastern Roman Empire. Nevertheless, Irene is said to have endeavoured to negotiate a marriage between herself and Charlemagne; but according to Theophanes the Confessor, who alone mentions it, the scheme was frustrated by Aetios, one of her favourites.
In 802 the patricians conspired against her and placed on the throne Nikephoros, the minister of finance (logothetēs tou genikou). Irene was exiled to Lesbos and forced to support herself by spinning. She died the following year.
Her zeal in restoring the icons and monasteries made Theodore the Studite praise her as a saint of the Eastern Orthodox Church, but she was not canonized. Claims about her supposed canonization are mainly from Western sources. Such claims are not supported by the Menaion (the official liturgical book providing the propers of the saints of the Orthodox Church), the "Lives of Saints" by Nikodemos the Hagiorite, or any other relative book of the Orthodox Church.
Read more about this topic: Irene Of Athens
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“What is popularly called fame is nothing but an empty name and a legacy from paganism.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)