As someone who grew up Catholic, I’ve always been used to religious imagery, including statues & other forms of religious art

Walking into an old Gothic Cathedral is an experience involving all senses & naturally imbues a feeling of contemplation & awe

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It wasn't until I was an adult that I went into an Orthodox Church when a good friend got married in a Greek Orthodox Church

I was blown away by the beauty of the icons

Known as a “window to heaven,” icons help believers focus on the divine

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The 8th century brought iconoclasm, the destruction of such images, to the Byzantine Church when in 726 Emperor Leo III took a position against icons

They were removed from churches & destroyed, causing
much upheaval, basically causing a civil war

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While I won’t get into the complicated theological reasons for the dispute, the controversy ended in 787 when the Bishops met at Nicaea ordering believers to respect icons, but not to worship them

It flared up again a few decades later before finally being settled

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Iconoclasm, as a concept, came to refer to any deliberate destruction of religious icons or other monuments or symbols

Imagine the loss to the cultural history of the world if iconoclasm had become the dominant ideology

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The world needs more beauty, not less

More creation & less destruction

More discussion about the meaning of symbols, both bad and good

More of a sense of wonder & awe both with the created world & w/those things created by people
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