thumb|upright=1.2|[[Icon of the Triumph of Orthodoxy depicting the "Triumph of Orthodoxy" over iconoclasm under the Byzantine empress Theodora and her son Michael III, late 14th to early 15th century]]
Iconoclasm () is the belief in the importance of the destruction of icons and other images or monuments, often for religious or political reasons. Those who engage in or support iconoclasm are called iconoclasts, a term that has come to be applied figuratively and more broadly to anyone who challenges "cherished beliefs or venerated institutions on the grounds that they are erroneous or pernicious".
Conversely, one who reveres or venerates religious images is called (by iconoclasts) an iconolater; in a Byzantine context, such a person is called an iconodule or iconophile. Iconoclasm does not generally encompass the destruction of the images of a specific ruler after their death or overthrow, a practice better known as damnatio memoriae.
While iconoclasm may be carried out by adherents of a different religion, it is more commonly the result of sectarian disputes between factions of the same religion. The term originates from the Byzantine Iconoclasm, the struggles between proponents and opponents of religious icons in the Byzantine Empire from 726 to 842 AD. While the enthusiasm for iconoclasm varies among faiths, the practice is more common in religions which oppose idolatry, such as the Abrahamic religions.
<blockquote>In rebellion against the old religion and the powerful priests of Amun, Akhenaten ordered the eradication of all of Egypt's traditional gods. He sent royal officials to chisel out and destroy every reference to Amun and the names of other deities on tombs, temple walls, and cartouches to instill in the people that the Aten was the one true god.</blockquote>
Public references to Akhenaten were destroyed soon after his death. Comparing the ancient Egyptians with the Israelites, Jan Assmann writes:
<blockquote>For Egypt, the greatest horror was the destruction or abduction of the cult images. In the eyes of the Israelites, the erection of images meant the destruction of divine presence; in the eyes of the Egyptians, this same effect was attained by the destruction of images. In Egypt, iconoclasm was the most terrible religious crime; in Israel, the most terrible religious crime was idolatry. In this respect Osarseph alias Akhenaten, the iconoclast, and the Golden Calf, the paragon of idolatry, correspond to each other inversely, and it is strange that Aaron could so easily avoid the role of the religious criminal. It is more than probable that these traditions evolved under mutual influence. In this respect, Moses and Akhenaten became, after all, closely related.</blockquote>
Judaism
According to the Hebrew Bible, God instructed the Israelites to "destroy all [the] engraved stones, destroy all [the] molded images, and demolish all [the] high places" of the Canaanites as soon as they entered the Promised Land.
King Hezekiah purged Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem and all figures were also destroyed in the Land of Israel, including the Nehushtan, as recorded in the Second Book of Kings. His reforms were reversed in the reign of his son Manasseh.
Iconoclasm in Christian history
thumb|Defaced relief of [[Horus and Isis in the Temple of Edfu, Egypt. Local Christians engaged in campaigns of proselytism and iconoclasm.]]
thumb|Saint Benedict's monks destroy an image of [[Apollo, 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
thumb|[[Byzantine Iconoclasm, Chludov Psalter, 9th century]]The 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
thumb|An [[icon 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:
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It was also seen as a departure from ancient church tradition, of which there was a written record opposing religious images.
thumb|288px|Triumph of Orthodoxy
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.
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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 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.
<gallery mode="packed" caption="Calvinist iconoclasm during the Reformation" heights="210">
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.
</gallery>
thumb|right|alt=A painting|288px|In this [[Elizabethan 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:
<blockquote>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.</blockquote>
thumb|left|Altarpiece fragments (late 1300 – early 1400) destroyed during the English [[Dissolution of the Monasteries, mid-16th century]]
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William Dowsing was commissioned and salaried by the government to tour the towns and villages of East Anglia to destroy images in churches. His detailed record of his trail of destruction through Suffolk and Cambridgeshire survives: