Iconoclasm

By Andria Rhodes and Sophia Puricelli

The beginning of Iconoclasm

The start of Iconoclasm started in 726 when Emperor

Leo III publicly took a stand against religious icons
that took away from the representation of God

That public stand resulted in the destruction and

removal of religious icons in churches

Iconoclasm was defeated in 787

What is Heresy?

Heresy is the belief that religious icons take away the meaning
of God and is a distraction to the worship of God

The heresy of Iconoclasm is defined as destroying religious

images such as paintings of Jesus, Mary, the saints, crosses, etc.

They believe that people are dedicated to worship religious

icons instead of God

It taught to remove and destroy all religious icons and focus on

worshiping only God
Why was Heresy wrong?

The church disagrees with the destruction of images

that the catholic faith worshiped

They would burn the cross, saint pictures, pictures

involving catholicism, etc

The church also disagrees with the Iconoclasm belief

that you can not have images to help represent God
Who fought to end it?

Saint John of Damascus and Saint Theodore the Studio

fought against the iconoclastic beliefs and preached
that they were confused because Christ is revealed by
coming down and saving the world

The Empress of Theodora also proclaimed the

decisions for the seventh ecumenical council
How was Heresy defeated?

Iconoclasm ended in 787 when the seventh ecumenical council of

bishops met in Nicaea and ordered them to repeat holy icons and
prohibiting their adoration as idolatry

Emperor Leo V tried to restart Iconoclasm but Empress Theodora

proclaimed it would not happen again, agreeing with the seventh
ecumenical council in 843

This still happens in a sense today because some churches do not

have any paintings, statues, crosses or any religious figures
because they think the Catholic Church worship those objects but
they use them as aids to help them pray
Work cited

8th century
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Met's Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. The Met, n.d. Web. 30 Mar. 2017.

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