Byzantine Iconoclasm

It was accompanied by widespread destruction of images and persecution of supporters of the veneration of images. | The "First Iconoclasm", as it is sometimes called, lasted between about 726 and 787. | Next was between 814 and 842. According to the traditional view, Byzantine Iconoclasm constituted a ban on religious images by Emperor Leo III and continued under his successors. | Byzantine Iconoclasm refers to two periods in the history of the Byzantine Empire when the use of religious images or icons was opposed by religious and imperial authorities within the Eastern Church and the temporal imperial hierarchy.