and
Isis in the
Temple of Edfu, Egypt. Local Christians engaged in campaigns of
proselytism and iconoclasm. , worshiped in the
Roman Empire. Scattered expressions of
opposition to the use of images have been reported: the
Synod of Elvira appeared to endorse iconoclasm; Canon 36 states: "Pictures are not to be placed in churches, so that they do not become objects of worship and adoration." A possible translation is also: "There shall be no pictures in the church, lest what is worshipped and adored should be depicted on the walls." The date of this canon is disputed.
Proscription ceased after the destruction of pagan temples. However,
widespread use of Christian iconography only began as Christianity increasingly spread among Gentiles after the
legalization of Christianity by Roman Emperor
Constantine (c. 312 AD). During
the process of Christianisation under Constantine, Christian groups destroyed the images and sculptures of the
Roman Empire's
polytheist state religion. Among early church theologians, iconoclastic tendencies were supported by theologians such as
Tertullian,
Clement of Alexandria,
Justin Martyr,
Byzantine era ,
Chludov Psalter, 9th centuryThe period after the reign of
Byzantine Emperor Justinian (527–565) evidently saw a huge increase in the use of images, both in volume and quality, and a gathering aniconic reaction. One notable change within the
Byzantine Empire came in 695, when
Justinian II's government added a full-face image of Christ on the
obverse of imperial gold coins. The change caused the
Caliph Abd al-Malik to stop his earlier adoption of Byzantine coin types. He started a purely Islamic coinage with lettering only. A letter by the
Patriarch Germanus, written before 726 to two iconoclast bishops, says that "now whole towns and multitudes of people are in considerable agitation over this matter", but there is little written evidence of the debate. Government-led iconoclasm began with Byzantine Emperor
Leo III, who issued a series of
edicts between 726 and 730 against the
veneration of images. The religious conflict created political and economic divisions in Byzantine society; iconoclasm was generally supported by the Eastern, poorer, non-Greek peoples of the Empire who had to frequently deal with raids from the new Muslim Empire. On the other hand, the wealthier Greeks of
Constantinople and the peoples of the Balkan and Italian provinces strongly opposed iconoclasm. He ordered the removal of an image of
Jesus prominently placed over the
Chalke gate, the ceremonial entrance to the
Great Palace of Constantinople, and its replacement with a cross. Some of those assigned to the task were killed by a band of
iconodules. Over the years conflict developed between those who wanted to use the images, claiming that they were "icons" to be "venerated", and the iconoclasts who claimed they were simply idols.
Pope Gregory III "convoked a synod in 730 and formally condemned iconoclasm as heretical and excommunicated its promoters. The papal letter never reached Constantinople as the messengers were intercepted and arrested in Sicily by the Byzantines". The Byzantine Emperor
Constantine V convened the
Council of Hieria in 754. The 338 bishops assembled concluded, "the unlawful art of painting living creatures blasphemed the fundamental doctrine of our salvation—namely, the Incarnation of Christ, and contradicted the six holy synods ... If anyone shall endeavour to represent the forms of the Saints in lifeless pictures with material colours which are of no value (for this notion is vain and introduced by the devil), and does not rather represent their virtues as living images in himself, etc ... let him be anathema". This Council claimed to be the legitimate "Seventh Ecumenical Council".
Second Council of Nicaea 787 of the
Seventh Ecumenical Council (17th century,
Novodevichy Convent, Moscow). In 780, Constantine VI ascended the throne in Constantinople, but being a minor, was managed by his mother Empress
Irene. She decided that an ecumenical council needed to be held to address the issue of iconoclasm and directed this request to
Pope Adrian I (772–795) in Rome. He announced his agreement and called the convention on 1 August 786 in the presence of the Emperor and Empress. The initial proceedings were interrupted by the violent entry of iconoclast soldiers faithful to the memory of the prior Emperor Constantine V. This caused the council to be adjourned until a reliable army could be assembled to protect any proceedings. The council was reassembled at
Nicaea 24 September 787. During those proceedings the following was adopted: (Note:see It was also seen as a departure from ancient church tradition, of which there was a written record opposing religious images. The chief theological opponents of iconoclasm were the monks Mansur (
John of Damascus), who, living in Muslim territory as advisor to the Caliph of Damascus, was far enough away from the Byzantine emperor to evade retribution, and
Theodore the Studite, abbot of the
Stoudios monastery in Constantinople. John declared that he did not venerate matter, "but rather the creator of matter". However he also declared, "But I also venerate the matter through which salvation came to me, as if filled with divine energy and grace". He includes in this latter category the ink in which the gospels were written as well as the paint of images, the wood of the Cross, and the Body and Blood of Jesus. The iconodule response to iconoclasm included: • Assertion that the biblical commandment forbidding images of God had been superseded by the incarnation of Jesus, who, being the Second Person of the Trinity, is God incarnate in visible matter. Therefore, they were not depicting the invisible God, but God as He appeared in the flesh. This became an attempt to shift the issue of the incarnation in their favor, whereas the iconoclasts had used the issue of the incarnation against them. • Further, in their view idols depicted persons without substance or reality while icons depicted real persons. Essentially the argument was "all religious images not of our faith are idols; all images of our faith are icons to be venerated". This was considered comparable to
the Old Testament practice of offering burnt sacrifices only to God, and not to any other gods. • Moses had been instructed by God according to Exodus 25 to make golden statues of
cherubim angels on the lid of the
Ark of the Covenant, and according to Exodus 26 God instructed Moses to embroider the curtain which separated the
Holy of Holies in the
Tabernacle with cherubim. Moses had also been told by God to embroider the tent walls of the Tabernacle with cherubim angels according to Exodus 26 and Exodus 36. • Regarding the written tradition opposing the making and veneration of images, they asserted that icons were part of unrecorded oral tradition (
parádosis, sanctioned in Christianity as authoritative in doctrine by reference to Thessalonians 2,
Basil the Great, etc.). • Arguments were drawn from the miraculous
Acheiropoieta, the supposed icon of the Virgin painted with her approval by St. Luke, and other miraculous occurrences around icons, that demonstrated divine approval of Iconodule practices. • Iconodules further argued that decisions such as whether icons ought to be venerated were properly made by the church assembled in council, not imposed on the church by an emperor. Thus the argument also involved the issue of the proper relationship between church and state. Related to this was the observation that it was foolish to deny to God the same honor that was freely given to the human emperor. -->
Pre-Reformation Peter of Bruys opposed the usage of religious images, the
Strigolniki were also possibly iconoclastic.
Claudius of Turin was the
bishop of Turin from 817 until his death. He is most noted for teaching iconoclasm.
Martin Luther, then concealed under the pen-name of 'Junker Jörg', intervened to calm things down. Luther argued that the mental picturing of Christ when reading the Scriptures was similar in character to artistic renderings of Christ. In contrast to the
Lutherans who favoured certain types of sacred art in their churches and homes, As a result, individuals attacked statues and images, most famously in the
beeldenstorm across the Low Countries in 1566. The belief of iconoclasm caused havoc throughout
Europe. In 1523, specifically due to the Swiss reformer
Huldrych Zwingli, a vast number of his followers viewed themselves as being involved in a spiritual community that in matters of faith should obey neither the visible Church nor lay authorities. According to Peter George Wallace, "Zwingli's attack on images, at the first debate, triggered iconoclastic incidents in Zürich and the villages under civic jurisdiction that the reformer was unwilling to condone." Due to this action of protest against authority, "Zwingli responded with a carefully reasoned treatise that men could not live in society without laws and constraint". Significant iconoclastic riots took place in
Basel (in 1529),
Zürich (1523),
Copenhagen (1530),
Münster (1534),
Geneva (1535),
Augsburg (1537),
Scotland (1559),
Rouen (1560), and
Saintes and
La Rochelle (1562). Calvinist iconoclasm in Europe "provoked reactive riots by Lutheran mobs" in Germany and "antagonized the neighbouring
Eastern Orthodox" in the Baltic region. The
Seventeen Provinces (now the Netherlands, Belgium, and parts of Northern France) were disrupted by widespread Calvinist iconoclasm in the summer of 1566. File:Destruction of icons in Zurich 1524.jpg|Destruction of religious images by the Reformed in
Zürich, Switzerland, 1524 File:Le Sac de Lyon par les Réformés - Vers1565.jpg|
Looting of the Churches of Lyon by the Calvinists in 1562 by
Antoine Caron File:Iconoclasm Clocher Saint Barthelemy south side La Rochelle.jpg|Remains of Calvinist iconoclasm, Clocher Saint-Barthélémy,
La Rochelle, France File:2008-09 Nijmegen st stevens beeldenstorm.JPG|16th-century iconoclasm in the
Protestant Reformation. Relief statues in St. Stevenskerk in
Nijmegen, Netherlands, were attacked and defaced by Calvinists in the
Beeldenstorm. work of propaganda, the top right depicts men pulling down and smashing icons, while power is shifting from the dying King
Henry VIII at left, pointing to his staunchly
Protestant son, the boy-king
Edward VI at centre. During the
Reformation in England, which started during the reign of
Henry VIII, and was urged on by reformers such as
Hugh Latimer and
Thomas Cranmer, limited official action was taken against religious images in churches in the late 1530s. Henry's young son,
Edward VI, came to the throne in 1547 and, under Cranmer's guidance, issued injunctions for religious reforms in the same year and in 1549 the
Putting away of Books and Images Act. During the
English Civil War, the
Parliamentarians reorganised the administration of
East Anglia into the
Eastern Association of counties. This covered some of the wealthiest counties in
England, which in turn financed a substantial and significant military force. After
Earl of Manchester was appointed the commanding officer of these forces, in turn he appointed
Smasher Dowsing as
Provost Marshal, with a warrant to demolish religious images which were considered to be superstitious or linked with popism. Bishop
Joseph Hall of
Norwich described the events of 1643 when troops and citizens, encouraged by a Parliamentary ordinance against superstition and
idolatry, behaved thus: Lord what work was here! What clattering of glasses! What beating down of walls! What tearing up of monuments! What pulling down of seats! What wresting out of irons and brass from the windows! What defacing of arms! What demolishing of curious stonework! What tooting and piping upon organ pipes! And what a hideous triumph in the market-place before all the country, when all the mangled organ pipes, vestments, both copes and surplices, together with the leaden cross which had newly been sawn down from the Green-yard pulpit and the service-books and singing books that could be carried to the fire in the public market-place were heaped together. , mid-16th century
Protestant Christianity was not uniformly hostile to the use of religious images. Martin Luther taught the "importance of images as tools for instruction and aids to devotion", stating: "If it is not a sin but good to have the image of Christ in my heart, why should it be a sin to have it in my eyes?" Lutheran churches retained ornate church interiors with a prominent
crucifix, reflecting their high view of the real presence of Christ in
Eucharist. For Lutherans, "the Reformation renewed rather than removed the religious image". Lutheran scholar Jeremiah Ohl writes:Zwingli and others for the sake of saving the Word rejected all plastic art; Luther, with an equal concern for the Word, but far more conservative, would have all the arts to be the servants of the Gospel. "I am not of the opinion" said [Luther], "that through the Gospel all the arts should be banished and driven away, as some zealots want to make us believe; but I wish to see them all, especially music, in the service of Him Who gave and created them." Again he says: "I have myself heard those who oppose pictures, read from my German Bible.... But this contains many pictures of God, of the angels, of men, and of animals, especially in the Revelation of St. John, in the books of Moses, and in the book of Joshua. We therefore kindly beg these fanatics to permit us also to paint these pictures on the wall that they may be remembered and better understood, inasmuch as they can harm as little on the walls as in books. Would to God that I could persuade those who can afford it to paint the whole Bible on their houses, inside and outside, so that all might see; this would indeed be a Christian work. For I am convinced that it is God's will that we should hear and learn what He has done, especially what Christ suffered. But when I hear these things and meditate upon them, I find it impossible not to picture them in my heart. Whether I want to or not, when I hear, of Christ, a human form hanging upon a cross rises up in my heart: just as I see my natural face reflected when I look into water. Now if it is not sinful for me to have Christ's picture in my heart, why should it be sinful to have it before my eyes?The Ottoman Sultan
Suleiman the Magnificent, who had pragmatic reasons to support the
Dutch Revolt (the rebels, like himself, were fighting against Spain) also completely approved of their act of "destroying idols", which accorded well with Muslim teachings. 16th century Protestant iconoclasm had various effects on visual arts: it encouraged the development of art with violent images such as martyrdoms, of pieces whose subject was the dangers of idolatry, or art stripped of objects with overt Catholic symbolism: the
still life,
landscape and
genre paintings.
Other instances In Japan during the early modern age, the
spread of Catholicism also involved the repulsion of non-Christian religious structures, including Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines and figures. At times of conflict with rivals or some time after the conversion of several
daimyos, Christian converts would often destroy Buddhist and Shinto religious structures. Many of the
moai of
Easter Island were
toppled during the 18th century in the iconoclasm of civil wars before any European encounter. Other instances of iconoclasm may have occurred throughout Eastern Polynesia during its conversion to Christianity in the 19th century. After the
Second Vatican Council in the late 20th century, some Roman Catholic parish churches
discarded much of their traditional imagery and art which critics call iconoclasm. ==Muslim iconoclasm== and
Ali (represented by golden flames) leading the Muslims in their destruction of Meccan idols
Islam has a strong tradition of forbidding the depiction of figures, especially religious figures, with some
Sunnis forbidding it entirely. In the
history of Islam, the act of removing idols from the
Ka'ba in
Mecca has great symbolic and historic importance for all believers. In general, Muslim societies have
avoided the depiction of living beings (both animals and humans) within such sacred spaces as
mosques and
madrasahs. This ban on figural representation is not based on the
Qur'an, instead, it is based on traditions which are described within the
Hadith. The prohibition of figuration has not always been extended to the secular sphere, and a robust tradition of figural representation exists within
Muslim art. However, Western authors have tended to perceive "a long, culturally determined, and unchanging tradition of violent iconoclastic acts" within
Islamic society. This act was intended to bring an end to the
idolatry which, in the Muslim view, characterized
Jahiliyyah. The destruction of the idols of Mecca did not, however, determine the treatment of other religious communities living under Muslim rule after the expansion of the
caliphate. Most Christians under Muslim rule, for example, continued to produce icons and to decorate their churches as they wished. A major exception to this pattern of tolerance in early Islamic history was the "Edict of Yazīd", issued by the
Umayyad caliph
Yazīd II in 722–723. This edict ordered the destruction of crosses and Christian images within the territory of the caliphate. Researchers have discovered evidence that the order was followed, particularly in present-day
Jordan, where
archaeological evidence shows the removal of images from the mosaic floors of some, although not all, of the churches that stood at this time. But Yazīd's iconoclastic policies were not continued by his successors, and Christian communities of the
Levant continued to make icons without significant interruption from the sixth century to the ninth.
Egypt 's profile in 2010, without its nose
Al-Maqrīzī, writing in the 15th century, attributes the missing nose on the
Great Sphinx of Giza to iconoclasm by
Muhammad Sa'im al-Dahr, a
Sufi Muslim in the mid-1300s. He was reportedly outraged by local Muslims making offerings to the Great Sphinx in the hope of controlling the flood cycle, and he was later executed for vandalism. However, whether this was actually the cause of the missing nose has been debated by historians.
Mark Lehner, having performed an archaeological study, concluded that it was broken with instruments at an earlier unknown time between the 3rd and 10th centuries.
Ottoman conquests Certain conquering Muslim armies have used local temples or houses of worship as mosques. An example is
Hagia Sophia in
Istanbul (formerly
Constantinople), which was converted into a mosque in 1453. Most icons were desecrated and the rest were covered with plaster. In 1934 the government of Turkey decided to convert the Hagia Sophia into a museum and the restoration of the mosaics was undertaken by the
American Byzantine Institute beginning in 1932.
Contemporary events Certain Muslim denominations continue to pursue iconoclastic agendas. There has been much controversy within Islam over the
recent and apparently on-going destruction of historic sites by
Saudi Arabian authorities, prompted by the fear they could become the subject of "
idolatry". A recent act of iconoclasm was the 2001 destruction of the giant
Buddhas of Bamyan by the then-
Taliban government of
Afghanistan. The act generated worldwide protests and was not supported by other Muslim governments and organizations. It was widely perceived in the Western media as a result of the Muslim prohibition against figural decoration. Such an account overlooks "the coexistence between the Buddhas and the Muslim population that marveled at them for over a millennium" before their destruction. In 2016, the
International Criminal Court (ICC) sentenced
Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi, a former member of Ansar Dine, to nine years in prison for this destruction of cultural world heritage. This was the first time that the ICC convicted a person for such a crime. The
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant carried out iconoclastic attacks such as the destruction of Shia mosques and shrines. Notable incidents include blowing up the Mosque of the Prophet Yunus (
Jonah) and destroying the Shrine to
Seth in
Mosul. ==Iconoclasm in India==