Iconoclasts

(i-kōn'o-klāstz.) [Gr. eikon, an image, and klastēs, a destroyer.) The name used to designate those in the Church, from the 8th cent. downwards, who, chiefly in the Eastern Church, have been opposed to the use of sacred images;-that is, of statues, pictures, and other sensible representations of sacred objects;-or at least to the paying of religious honor or reverence to such representations. The term is more particularly applied to the Byzantine emperors, Leo the I saurian, and his son Const an tine Copronymus, with whom began the Iconoclastic movement. [s. 475]