Was praying over icons and disagreement about whether Christ was the son of God a source of tension between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches?

Answer 1

Although in practice icons often were (and still often are) objects of worship among Orthodox believers and several of them were and are believed to have supernatural powers, the official teaching of the Orthodox Church is that they are not sacred object of worship. In that sense there is or was no difference or tension between the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Church. Roman Catholic teaching also does not consider statues of the Virgin and other Saints as holy object of worship, and exactly as among Orthodox believers, many devout Catholics do nevertheless pray to those statues and attribute supernatural powers to some of them.

Nor was there any difference on the issue whether Jesus was the Son of God. There was however a subtle difference on the issue of the Holy Spirit: Orthodox teaching holds that Father, Son and Holy Ghost are 3 separate 'persons', with the Holy Ghost being linked to only the Father. Catholicism sees the three as a "Trinity", and has the Holy Ghost linked to the Father as well as to the Son.

No; basically the schism was caused by a power struggle, pure and simple. The Eastern Roman Emperor totally rejected the claims of what he considered just the Bishop of an impoverished and politically negligible city like Rome (which the Pope was, at the time) of "universal jurisdiction" over all Christians. Meaning that his Empire, his Church and even he himself should be subject to said bishop. So instead, the Emperor created the "Orthodox"church organization in which the church's highest cleric was answerabele to him instead of the other way around.