A Somewhat Slanted Look at the History of the Christian Church – Part XXXIII

Dr. T.Y. Hiter
Dr. T.Y. Hiter

Iconoclasm is generally taken to mean the Greek/Byzantine experience of the 8th Century. Certainly, that was the time that the name was invented for, and it was the time that’s perhaps best known, but it’s far from being the only time that some members of the Church (including the rulers thereof) have gone wild breaking up images. It’s happened over and over, and in some respects, it’s happening right now.

The display of images, both graphic (drawn or painted) and sculptural (statues) goes back to the earliest days of the Church. One broad difference emerged quite early between the Eastern, or Greek, and Western, or Roman churches. In the West, realistic depiction became the norm, whereas in the East, “icons”, very stylized, non-natural renderings became the norm.

This difference, as significant as it was (and is), probably had little to do with the Great Schism. The Roman Church was willing to live with the Eastern arts and vice versa. What the Roman Church could, or would not forgive was the demolition of the images, altogether, which is what was going on in the Byzantine Empire.

Islam complicated this in the period leading up to the Crusades. The destruction of images of living things has always been a central part of Islamic theology, and this was no doubt influential in separating many Christians from the Empire, as well as in driving the Eastern and Western Churches apart.

After the Crusades and the destruction of Constantinople, the Church in the West became even more attached to its images, and one of the foci of the Protestant Reformation was in its own way, iconoclastic. Some Protestant reformers, such as Ulrich Zwingli encouraged the removal of religious images from Churches, and sometimes members of Protestant flocks took this “removal” to mean outright destruction.

Significant iconoclastic destruction occurred Zurich, Copenhagen, Münster, Geneva and Augsburg in the first half of the 1500s, in Scotland, at mid-Century, and in France and Holland in the 1560s. In England, iconoclasm broke out when the Puritan faction of the Church of England took power during the English Civil War of the 1640s and 1650s.

After beheading the king, Puritan “roundheads” set out to “purify” the Church (after all, that’s where they got the name!) by, among other things, breaking the heads off all the statues they could find. They also painted over the paintings in Churches. Some of this damage is still visible, today, where it is often pointed out by guides in the great Cathedrals and other Churches of Great Britain.