Iconoclasts Sentence Examples

Elected as the tool of the bigoted orthodox party in the Church, Michael diligently persecuted the iconoclasts on the northern and eastern frontiers of the empire, but meanwhile allowed the Bulgarians to ravage a great part of Macedonia and Thrace; having at last taken the field in the spring of 813, he was defeated near Bersinikia, and Leo the Armenian was saluted emperor in his stead in the following summer.

With the latter attitude alone does the present article deal, and it may conveniently be called idolatry or image worship. For the history of the use of images in Christian worship see Iconoclasts.

The most general application of the word is to such a representation when used as an object of religious worship or adoration, or as a decorative or architectural ornament in places of religious worship. The worship of images, or idolatry, from the point of view of comparative religion, is treated in the article Image-Worship, and the history of the attitude of the Christian church, outside the post-Reformation church of England, towards the use of images as objects of worship and religion in the article Iconoclasts.

In his last years he travelled through Syria contending against the iconoclasts, and in the same cause he visited Constantinople at the imminent risk of his life during the reign of Constantine Copronymus.

See also Iconoclasts.

In his contest with the Greek empire and the Lombard princes of Benevento, Adrian remained faithful to the Frankish alliance, and the friendly relations between pope and emperor were not disturbed by the difference which arose between them on the question of the worship of images, to which Charlemagne and the Gallican Church were strongly opposed, while Adrian favoured the views of the Eastern Church, and approved the decree of the council of Nicaea (787), confirming the practice and excommunicating the iconoclasts.

He condemned the iconoclasts at a council convened at Rome in November 731, and, like his predecessor Gregory II., stimulated the missionary labours of St Boniface, on whom he conferred the pallium.

In August 786 the council met, but was broken up by the imperial guards, who were Easterns and sturdy iconoclasts.

Leo feigned for a while to be on their side, but on the 2nd of February 815, in the sanctuary of St Sophia, publicly refused to prostrate himself before the images, with the approbation of the army and of many bishops who were iconoclasts at heart.

The iconoclasts proper, who not only condemned image worship in the sense just explained but rejected all religious art whatever.

The issue of the struggle was not a complete victory even in Byzantium for the partisans of image-worship. The iconoclasts left an indelible impress on the Christian art of the Greek Church, in so far as they put an end to the use of graven images; for the Eastern icon is a flat picture, less easily regarded than would be a statue as a nidus within which a spirit can lurk.

Margaret of Parma meanwhile, with the aid of a considerable body of German mercenaries, had inflicted exemplary punishment upon the iconoclasts and Calvinist sectaries.

A report that Herod was dead co-operated with their exhortations to send the iconoclasts to their appointed work.

See Iconoclasts; Image-worship; Byzantine Art.

He made himself conspicuous by issuing a pamphlet in justification of the iconoclasts who devastated Flanders in 1566, and on Alva's arrival next year had to fly the country.