Iconoclast

ICONOCLAST

Iconoclast is the destruction of religious images: churches, temples, statues, paintings. Through Christianisty and Islam iconoclasm has been based on the exemption og images associated with idolatry. The making of portraits of Christ and the saints was opposed in the early Christian church, but icons had become popular in Christian worship by the end of the 6th century, and defenders of icon worship emphasized the symbolic nature of the images. Opposition to icons by the Byzantine emperor Leo III in 726 led to the Iconoclastic Controversy, which continued in the Eastern church for more than a century before icons were again accepted. Statues and portraits of saints and religious figures were also common in the Western church, though some Protestant sects eventually rejected them. Islam still bans all icons, and iconoclasm has played a role in the conflicts between Muslims and Hindus in India.

The odd pair of beliefs shared by enthusiasts including Cromwell and the Taliban, that while ‘false idols’ have no supernatural powers they are nevertheless so dangerous that they must be destroyed rather than ignored.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Protestant reformers encouraged removing religious images. Statues and images were damaged in individual attacks and iconoclastic riots. In most situations the images were removed in an orderly fashion by the authorities in new reformed cities and Eurpoes territories. John Calvin, Andreas Karlstadt and Huldrych were key players in this reform.

Puritans were commissioned and salaried by the government to tour the towns and villages and destroy images in churches.

The picture above is from the Cathedral of Saint Martin, Utrecht. The faces were chipped on in the sixteenth century during the Iconoclast Reformation.