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Iconoclasm
(Greek: eikon, image, and klaein, to break)
A heresy that disturbed the peace of the Eastern Church in the 8th and 9th centuries. It rejected both the use and the veneration of images. The first storm against images was raised by an Emperor, Leo the Isaurian, 726, and brought to an end by the Seventh General Council, 787, under the protection of the Empress Irene; the second, inaugurated by Emperor Leo V, was ended by the establishment of the feast of Orthodoxy (19 February 842), under the Empress Theodora. In the West there was an echo of the controversy under Charlemagne, 790. Here the controversy turned about the veneration of images. In an interchange of letters between the pope and the Frankish bishops the principles were gradually clarified and the decrees of the Seventh General Council accepted.New Catholic Dictionary