A Dictionary of All Religions and Religious Denominations/Iconoclastes

by Hannah Adams

*ICONOCLASTES, image breakers ; (from $\epsilon \iota \kappa \omega \nu$, an image, and $\kappa \lambda \alpha \epsilon \iota \nu$, to break;) was a name given to those who rejected the use of images in churches, and on certain occasions vented their zeal in destroying them. The great opposition to images began under Bardanes, a Greek emperour in the beginning of the eighth century; and was revived again, a few years after, under Leo the Isaurian, who issued an edict against image worship, which occasioned a civil war in the islands of the Archipelago, and afterwards in Italy; the Roman pontiffs, and the Greek councils, alternately supporting it. At length images were rejected by the Greek church, which, however, retains pictures in churches, though her members do not worship them; but the Latin church not only retained images, but made them the medium, if not the object of their worship, and are therefore called Iconoduli, or Iconolatrae, i. e. image-worshippers.^[1] See Ikonobortsi.

Original footnotes

1. Mosheim, vol. ii. p. 262, and 887.