Iconoclasm

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Iconoclasm[Note 1] is the social belief in the importance of the destruction of icons and other images or monuments, most frequently for religious or political reasons. Over time, the word, usually in the adjectival form, has also come to refer to aggressive statements or actions against any well-established status quo. It is a frequent component of major political or religious changes. The term does not generally encompass the specific destruction of images of a ruler after his death or overthrow (damnatio memoriae). People who engage in or support iconoclasm are called iconoclasts, a term that has come to be applied figuratively to any individual who challenges "cherished beliefs or venerated institutions on the grounds that they are erroneous or pernicious".[1] Conversely, one who reveres or venerates religious images is called (by iconoclasts) an iconolater; in a Byzantine
Byzantine context, such a person is called an iconodule or iconophile. Iconoclasm
Iconoclasm may be carried out by people of a different religion, but is often the result of sectarian disputes between factions of the same religion. Within Christianity, iconoclasm has generally been motivated by those who adopt a literal interpretation of the Ten Commandments, which forbid the making and worshipping of "graven images or any likeness of anything".[2] The Church Fathers
Church Fathers identified Jews, fundamental iconoclasts, with heresy and saw deviations from orthodox Christianity and opposition to the veneration of images as heresies that were essentially "Jewish in spirit".[3] The degree of iconoclasm among Christian branches greatly varies. Islam, in general, tends to be more iconoclastic than Christianity,[4] with Sunni Islam
Islam being more iconoclastic than Shia Islam.

Contents

1 Religious iconoclasm

1.1 Ancient era 1.2 Byzantine
Byzantine era 1.3 Protestant
Protestant Reformation 1.4 Muslim iconoclasm

1.4.1 Recent events

1.5 Other examples of religious iconoclasm

2 Political and revolutionary iconoclasm

2.1 Damnatio memoriae 2.2 Iconoclasm
Iconoclasm in the French Revolution 2.3 Destruction of Hindu temples

2.3.1 During the Muslim conquest of Sindh 2.3.2 Later destruction of Hindu temples

2.4 Chinese iconoclasm 2.5 Iconoclasm
Iconoclasm in Eastern Europe 2.6 Other examples

3 See also 4 Notes 5 References 6 Further reading 7 External links

Religious iconoclasm[edit] Ancient era[edit] Main article: Akhenaten

Amun.

In the Bronze Age, the most significant episode of iconoclasm occurred in Egypt during the Amarna Period, when Akhenaten, based in his new capital of Akhetaten, instituted a significant shift in Egyptian artistic styles alongside a campaign of indifference/ intolerance towards the traditional gods and a new emphasis on a state monolatristic tradition focused on the god Aten, the Sun disk— many temples and monuments were destroyed as a result. Akhenaten's actions are described thusly:

"In rebellion against the old religion and the powerful priests of Amun, Akhenaten
Akhenaten ordered the eradication of all of Egypt's traditional gods. He sent royal officials to chisel out and destroy every reference to Amun
Amun and the names of other deities on tombs, temple walls, and cartouches to instill in the people that the Aten
Aten was the one true god."[5]

Public references to Akhenaten
Akhenaten were destroyed soon after his death. Comparing the ancient Egyptians with the Israelites, Jan Assmann writes:

"For Egypt, the greatest horror was the destruction or abduction of the cult images. In the eyes of the Israelites, the erection of images meant the destruction of divine presence; in the eyes of the Egyptians, this same effect was attained by the destruction of images. In Egypt, iconoclasm was the most terrible religious crime; in Israel, the most terrible religious crime was idolatry. In this respect Osarseph alias Akhenaten, the iconoclast, and the Golden Calf, the paragon of idolatry, correspond to each other inversely, and it is strange that Aaron
Aaron could so easily avoid the role of the religious criminal. It is more than probable that these traditions evolved under mutual influence. In this respect, Moses
Moses and Akhenaten
Akhenaten became, after all, closely related."[6]

Byzantine
Byzantine era[edit] Main article: Byzantine
Byzantine Iconoclasm

Byzantine
Byzantine Iconoclasm, Chludov Psalter, 9th century.[7]

Although widespread use of Christian iconography only began as Christianity increasingly spread among gentiles after the legalization of Christianity by Roman Emperor
Roman Emperor Constantine (c. 312 AD), scattered expressions of opposition to the use of images were reported (e.g. Spanish Synod of Elvira). The period after the reign of Byzantine Emperor Justinian
Justinian (527–565) evidently saw a huge increase in the use of images, both in volume and quality, and a gathering aniconic reaction. In the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, government-led iconoclasm began with Byzantine
Byzantine Emperor Leo III, following what seems to have been a long period of rising opposition to the use or misuse of images. The religious conflict created political and economic divisions in Byzantine
Byzantine society. It was generally supported by the Eastern, poorer, non-Greek peoples of the Empire[8] who had to deal frequently with raids from the new Muslim Empire. On the other hand, the wealthier Greeks of Constantinople, and also the peoples of the Balkan and Italian provinces, strongly opposed iconoclasm.[9] Within the Byzantine
Byzantine Empire the government had probably been adopting Christian images more frequently. One notable change came in 695, when Justinian
Justinian II's government added a full-face image of Christ on the obverse of imperial gold coins. The change caused the Caliph
Caliph Abd al-Malik to stop his earlier adoption of Byzantine
Byzantine coin types. He started a purely Islamic coinage with lettering only.[10] A letter by the Patriarch Germanus written before 726 to two Iconoclast bishops says that "now whole towns and multitudes of people are in considerable agitation over this matter" but there is little written evidence of the debate.[11] Protestant
Protestant Reformation[edit] Further information: Beeldenstorm

Iconoclasm
Iconoclasm during Protestant
Protestant Reformation

16th-century iconoclasm in the Protestant
Protestant Reformation. Relief statues in St. Stevenskerk in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, were attacked and defaced in the Beeldenstorm.

Looting
Looting of the Churches of Lyon
Lyon by the Calvinists
Calvinists in 1562 by Antoine Caron.

Destruction of religious images in Zurich, 1524.

Remains of Reformation iconoclasm, Clocher Saint-Barthélémy, La Rochelle, France.

Some of the Protestant
Protestant reformers, in particular Andreas Karlstadt, Huldrych Zwingli
Huldrych Zwingli and John Calvin, encouraged the removal of religious images by invoking the Decalogue's prohibition of idolatry and the manufacture of graven (sculpted) images of God. As a result, individuals attacked statues and images. However, in most cases, civil authorities removed images in an orderly manner in the newly reformed Protestant
Protestant cities and territories of Europe. Significant iconoclastic riots took place in Basel
Basel (in 1529), Zurich (1523), Copenhagen
Copenhagen (1530), Münster
Münster (1534), Geneva
Geneva (1535), Augsburg (1537), Scotland
Scotland (1559), Rouen
Rouen (1560) and Saintes and La Rochelle (1562).[12][13] In 1549, radical Protestant
Protestant preachers in London incited a mob to destroy many of the interior decorations in Old St Paul's Cathedral.[citation needed] The Seventeen Provinces
Seventeen Provinces (now the Netherlands, Belgium and parts of Northern France) were disrupted by widespread Protestant
Protestant iconoclasm in the summer of 1566. This is called the Beeldenstorm
Beeldenstorm and began with the destruction of the statuary of the Monastery of Saint Lawrence
Saint Lawrence in Steenvoorde
Steenvoorde after a "Hagenpreek", or field sermon, by Sebastiaan Matte. Hundreds of other attacks included the sacking of the Monastery of Saint Anthony after a sermon by Jacob de Buysere. The Beeldenstorm marked the start of the revolution against the Spanish forces and the Catholic Church. The iconoclastic belief caused havoc throughout Europe. In 1523, specifically due to the Swiss reformer Huldrych Zwingli, a vast number of his followers viewed themselves as being involved in a spiritual community that in matters of faith should obey neither the visible Church nor lay authorities. According to Peter George Wallace:

"Zwingli's attack on images, at the first debate, triggered iconoclastic incidents in Zurich
Zurich and the villages under civic jurisdiction that the reformer was unwilling to condone." And due to this action of protest against authority, "Zwingli responded with a carefully reasoned treatise that men could not live in society without laws and constraint."[14] — Wallace, pp. 95

The Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, who had pragmatic reasons to support the Dutch Revolt
Dutch Revolt (the rebels, like himself, were fighting against Spain) also completely approved of their act of "destroying idols", which accorded well with Muslim teachings.[15][16] Muslim iconoclasm[edit] Further information: Aniconism
Aniconism in Islam Within Muslim history, the act of removing idols from the Ka'ba
Ka'ba in Mecca is considered by all believers to be of great symbolic and historical importance. In general, Muslim societies have avoided the depiction of living beings (animals and humans) within such sacred spaces as mosques and madrasahs. This opposition to figural representation is based not on the Qur'an, but on traditions contained within the Hadith. The prohibition of figuration has not always extended to the secular sphere, and a robust tradition of figural representation exists within Muslim art.[17] However, Western authors have tended to perceive "a long, culturally determined, and unchanging tradition of violent iconoclastic acts" within Islamic society.[17] Recent events[edit] Further information: Destruction of early Islamic heritage sites in Saudi Arabia and Destruction of cultural heritage by ISIL Certain Muslim denominations continue to pursue iconoclastic agendas. There has been much controversy within Islam
Islam over the recent and apparently on-going destruction of historic sites by Saudi Arabian authorities, prompted by the fear they could become the subject of "idolatry".[18][19] During the Tuareg rebellion of 2012, the radical Islamist militia Ansar Dine
Ansar Dine destroyed various Sufi shrines from the 15th and 16th centuries in the city of Timbuktu, Mali.[20] In 2016, the International Criminal Court
International Criminal Court (ICC) sentenced Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi, a former member of Ansar Dine, to nine years in prison for this destruction of cultural world heritage. This was the first time that the ICC convicted a person for such a crime.[21] The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant has carried out iconoclastic attacks such as the destruction of Shia mosques and shrines. Notable incidents include blowing up the Mosque
Mosque of the Prophet Yunus (Jonah)[22] and destroying the Shrine to Seth
Seth in Mosul.[23] Other examples of religious iconoclasm[edit]

The Israelites
Israelites entering the Promised Land
Promised Land were instructed by God to 'destroy all [the] engraved stones, destroy all [the] molded images, and demolish all [the] high places' of the Canaanite indigenous population.[24] In Judaism, King Hezekiah
Hezekiah purged Solomon's Temple
Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem
Jerusalem and the Land of Israel
Land of Israel of figures, including the Nehushtan, as recorded in the Second Book of Kings. His reforms were reversed in the reign of his son Manasseh. In 305–306, the Synod of Elvira appeared to endorse iconoclasm. Canon 36 states, "Pictures are not to be placed in churches, so that they do not become objects of worship and adoration."[25][26][Note 2] Proscription ceased after the destruction of pagan temples. During the process of Christianisation under Constantine, Christian groups destroyed the images and sculptures expressive of the Roman Empire's polytheist state religion. Most of the moai of Easter Island
Easter Island were toppled during the 18th century in the iconoclasm of civil wars before any European encounter.[citation needed] Other instances of iconoclasm may have occurred throughout Eastern Polynesia during its conversion to Christianity in the 19th century.[27] After the Second Vatican Council
Second Vatican Council in the late twentieth century, some Roman Catholic parish churches discarded much of their traditional imagery, art, and architecture.[28] According to an article in Buddhist-Christian Studies: "Over the course of the last decade [1990s] a fairly large number of Buddhist temples in South Korea have been destroyed or damaged by fire by Christian fundamentalists. More recently, Buddhist statues have been identified as idols, and attacked and decapitated in the name of Jesus. Arrests are hard to effect, as the arsonists and vandals work by stealth of night."[29]

Political and revolutionary iconoclasm[edit]

The Sons of Liberty
Sons of Liberty pulling down the statue of George III of the United Kingdom on Bowling Green (New York City), 1776.

Damnatio memoriae[edit] Main article: damnatio memoriae Revolutions and changes of regime, whether through uprising of the local population, foreign invasion, or a combination of both, are often accompanied by the public destruction of statues and monuments identified with the previous regime. This may also be known as damnatio memoriae, the ancient Roman practice of official obliteration of the memory of a specific individual. Stricter definitions of "iconoclasm" exclude both types of action, reserving the term for religious or more widely cultural destruction. In many cases, such as Revolutionary Russia
Revolutionary Russia or Ancient Egypt, this distinction can be hard to make. Among Roman emperors and other political figures subject to decrees of damnatio memoriae were Sejanus, Publius Septimius Geta, and Domitian. Several Emperors, such as Domitian
Domitian and Commodus
Commodus had during their reigns erected numerous statues of themselves, which were pulled down and destroyed when they were overthrown. Iconoclasm
Iconoclasm in the French Revolution[edit] Throughout the radical phase of the French Revolution, iconoclasm was supported by members of the government as well as the citizenry. Numerous monuments, religious works, and other historically significant pieces were destroyed in an attempt to eradicate any memory of the Old Regime. At the same time, the republican government felt responsible to preserve these works for their historical, aesthetic, and cultural value. One way the republican government succeeded in their paradoxical mission of preserving and destroying symbols of the Old Regime
Old Regime was through the development of museums. During the Revolution, a statue of King Louis XV
King Louis XV in the Paris square which until then bore his name, was pulled down and destroyed. This was a prelude to the guillotining of his successor Louis XVI
Louis XVI in the same site, renamed "Place de la Révolution" (at present Place de la Concorde).[30] The statue of Napoleon on the column at Place Vendôme, Paris was also the target of iconoclasm several times: destroyed after the Bourbon Restoration, restored by Louis-Philippe, destroyed during the Paris Commune and restored by Adolphe Thiers. Destruction of Hindu temples[edit]

Iconoclasm
Iconoclasm during the Muslim conquests on the Indian subcontinent

The Somnath temple
Somnath temple was first attacked by Muslim invader Mahmud of Ghazni and repeatedly demolished by successive Muslim invaders, each time being rebuilt by Hindu rulers.

Ruins of the Martand Sun Temple. The temple was completely destroyed on the orders of Muslim Sultan Sikandar Butshikan
Sikandar Butshikan in the early 15th century, with demolition lasting a year.

During the Muslim conquest of Sindh[edit] Records from the campaign recorded in the Chach Nama
Chach Nama record the destruction of temples during the early eighth century when the Umayyad
Umayyad governor of Damascus, al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf,[31] mobilized an expedition of 6000 cavalry under Muhammad bin Qasim
Muhammad bin Qasim in 712. The historian Upendra Thakur records the persecution of Hindus
Hindus and Buddhists:

Muhammad triumphantly marched into the country, conquering Debal, Sehwan, Nerun, Brahmanadabad, Alor and Multan
Multan one after the other in quick succession, and in less than a year and a half, the far-flung Hindu kingdom was crushed ... There was a fearful outbreak of religious bigotry in several places and temples were wantonly desecrated. At Debal, the Nairun and Aror
Aror temples were demolished and converted into mosques.[32]

Later destruction of Hindu temples[edit] In 725 Junayad, the governor of Sind, sent his armies to destroy the second Somnath.[33] In 1024, the temple was again destroyed by Mahmud of Ghazni,[34] who raided the temple from across the Thar Desert. The wooden structure was replaced by Kumarapala (r. 1143–72), who rebuilt the temple out of stone.[35] Sultan Sikandar Butshikan
Sikandar Butshikan of Kashmir
Kashmir (1389–1413) ordered the breaking of all "golden and silver images". Firishta states, "After the emigration of the Bramins, Sikundur ordered all the temples in Kashmeer to be thrown down. Having broken all the images in Kashmeer, (Sikandar) acquired the title of 'Destroyer of Idols'".[36] Chinese iconoclasm[edit] Further information: Anti-Western sentiment in China There have been a number of anti-Buddhist campaigns in Chinese history that led to the destruction of Buddhist temples and images. One of the most notable of these campaigns was the Great Anti-Buddhist Persecution of the Tang dynasty. During and after the Xinhai Revolution, there was widespread destruction of religious and secular images in China. During the Northern Expedition
Northern Expedition in Guangxi
Guangxi in 1926, Kuomintang
Kuomintang General Bai Chongxi
Bai Chongxi led his troops in destroying Buddhist temples and smashing Buddhist images, turning the temples into schools and Kuomintang
Kuomintang party headquarters.[37] It was reported that almost all of the viharas in Guangxi
Guangxi were destroyed and the monks were removed.[38] Bai also led a wave of anti-foreignism in Guangxi, attacking Americans, Europeans, and other foreigners, and generally making the province unsafe for foreigners and missionaries. Westerners fled from the province and some Chinese Christians
Chinese Christians were also attacked as imperialist agents.[39] The three goals of the movement were anti-foreignism, anti-imperialism and anti-religion. Bai led the anti-religious movement against superstition. Huang Shaohong, also a Kuomintang
Kuomintang member of the New Guangxi
Guangxi clique, supported Bai's campaign. The anti-religious campaign was agreed upon by all Guangxi
Guangxi Kuomintang
Kuomintang members.[40] There was extensive destruction of religious and secular imagery in Tibet
Tibet after it was invaded and occupied by China.[41] During the Cultural Revolution, many religious and secular images were destroyed. The Cultural Revolution
Cultural Revolution included widespread destruction of historic artworks in public places and private collections, whether religious or secular. Objects in state museums were mostly left intact. Iconoclasm
Iconoclasm in Eastern Europe[edit]

Demolition of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, Moscow, 5 December 1931

During and after the October Revolution, widespread destruction of religious and secular imagery took place, as well as the destruction of imagery related to the Imperial family. The Revolution was accompanied by destruction of monuments of past tsars, as well as the destruction of imperial eagles at various locations throughout Russia. According to Christopher Wharton, "In front of a Moscow
Moscow cathedral, crowds cheered as the enormous statue of Tsar
Tsar Alexander III was bound with ropes and gradually beaten to the ground. After a considerable amount of time, the statue was decapitated and its remaining parts were broken into rubble".[42] The Soviet Union
Soviet Union actively destroyed religious sites, including Russian Orthodox churches and Jewish cemeteries, in order to discourage religious practice and curb the activities of religious groups. During the Hungarian Revolution of 1956
Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and during the Revolutions of 1989, protesters often attacked and took down sculptures and images of Joseph Stalin, such as the Stalin Monument in Budapest.[43] The fall of communism in 1989 was also followed by the destruction or removal of statues of Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Lenin and other Communist leaders in the former Soviet Union
Soviet Union and in other Eastern Bloc
Eastern Bloc countries. Particularly well-known was the destruction of "Iron Felix", the statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky outside the KGB's headquarters. Another statue of Dzerzhinsky was destroyed in a Warsaw
Warsaw square that was named after him during communist rule, but which is now called Bank Square. Other examples[edit]

Michael Servetus
Michael Servetus in prison, by Clothilde Roch. Monument in Annemasse, France - destroyed by the Vichy Government in 1942, restored in 1960 .

Statue of William of Orange formerly located on College Green, in Dublin. Erected in 1701, it was destroyed in 1929 - one of several memorials of British rule destroyed once Ireland achieved independence.

. Other examples of political destruction of images include:

During the American Revolution, the Sons of Liberty
Sons of Liberty pulled down and destroyed the gilded lead statue of George III of the United Kingdom on Bowling Green (New York City), melting it down to be recast as ammunition. Similar acts have accompanied the independence of most ex-colonial territories. Sometimes relatively intact monuments are moved to a collected display in a less prominent place, as in India and also post-Communist countries. From the 16th through the 19th centuries, many of the polytheistic religious deities and texts of pre-colonial Americas, Oceania and Africa were destroyed by Christian missionaries and their converts, such as during the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire
Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire and the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire. In 1942 the pro-Nazi Vichy Government of France took down and melted Clothilde Roch's statue of the 16th Century dissident intellectual Michael Servetus, who had been burned at the stake in Geneva
Geneva at the instigation of Calvin. The Vichy authorities disliked the statue, as it was a celebration of freedom of conscience. In 1960, having found the original molds, the municipality of Annemasse
Annemasse had it recast and returned the statue to its previous place.[44] The Taliban
Taliban destroyed two ancient Buddhas of Bamiyan
Buddhas of Bamiyan in Bamyan, Afghanistan
Afghanistan in March 2001.[45] ISIL destroyed multiple pieces of religious and cultural heritage in Iraq and Syria from 2014. During the Chinese Cultural Revolution
Cultural Revolution (1966–76) several Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and their religious artifacts were destroyed. The Battle of Baghdad symbolically ended with the Firdos Square statue destruction, a US military-staged event in April 2003 where a prominent statue of Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein was pulled down. In 2016, paintings from the University of Cape Town
University of Cape Town were burned in student protests as symbols of colonialism.[46] In August 2017 a statue of a Confederate soldier dedicated to “the boys who wore the gray” was pulled off of its pedestal in front of Durham County Courthouse in North Carolina
North Carolina by protesters.[47][48][49] The forcefull removal came after the 2017 Unite the Right rally.[50]

See also[edit]

Aniconism Censorship by religion Iconolatry Lost artworks Natural theology

Notes[edit]

^ Literally, "image-breaking", from Ancient Greek: εἰκών and κλάω. Iconoclasm
Iconoclasm may be also considered as a back-formation from iconoclast (from Greek εἰκοκλάστης). The corresponding Greek word for iconoclasm is εἰκονοκλασία – eikonoklasia. ^ A possible translation is also: "There shall be no pictures in the church, lest what is worshipped and adored should be depicted on the walls."

References[edit]

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Akhenaten to Moses: Ancient Egypt
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Byzantine Society and its Icons, 1985, George Philip, London, ISBN 0-540-01085-5. ^ C Mango, "Historical Introduction", in Bryer & Herrin, eds., Iconoclasm, pp. 2–3., 1977, Centre for Byzantine
Byzantine Studies, University of Birmingham, ISBN 0-7044-0226-2. ^ Neil Kamil, Fortress of the soul: violence, metaphysics, and material life, p. 148. Books.google.com. Retrieved 2013-04-30. ^ Wandel, Lee Palmer (1995). Voracious Idols and Violent Hands. Cambridge, UK: Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge. p. 149. ISBN 0-521-47222-9. ^ Wallace, Peter George. The Long European Reformation: Religion, Political Conflict, and the Search for Conformity, 1350–1750. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. pp. 95. ^ The Ottoman state and its place in world history by Kemal H. Karpat p.53 [1] ^ Muslims and the Gospel by Roland E. Miller p.208 ^ a b Flood, Finbarr Barry (2002). "Between cult and culture: Bamiyan, Islamic iconoclasm, and the museum". The Art Bulletin. 84: 641–659. doi:10.2307/3177288. ^ Howden, Daniel (2005-08-06). "Independent Newspaper on-line, London, Jan 19, 2007". News.independent.co.uk. Retrieved 2013-04-30. ^ Islamica Magazine Archived July 23, 2008, at the Wayback Machine. ^ Tharoor, Ishaan (2012-07-02). "Timbuktu's Destruction: Why Islamists Are Wrecking Mali's Cultural Heritage". TIME. Retrieved 10 July 2012. ^ "Nine Years for the Cultural Destruction of Timbuktu". The Atlantic. Retrieved 21 October 2017. ^ "Iraq jihadists blow up 'Jonah's tomb' in Mosul". The Telegraph. Agence France-Presse. 25 July 2014. Retrieved 25 July 2014. ^ July 2014 "ISIS destroys Prophet Sheth shrine in Mosul" Check url= value (help). Al Arabiya News. 26 July 2014. ^ Numbers 33:52 and similarly Deuteronomy 7:5 ^ Elvira canons, Cua, archived from the original on 2012-09-05, Placuit picturas in ecclesia esse non debere, ne quod colitur et adoratur in parietibus depingatur . ^ The Catholic Encyclopedia, This canon has often been urged against the veneration of images as practised in the Catholic Church. Binterim, De Rossi, and Hefele interpret this prohibition as directed against the use of images in overground churches only, lest the pagans should caricature sacred scenes and ideas; Von Funk, Termel, and Henri Leclercq opine that the council did not pronounce as to the liceity or non-liceity of the use of images, but as an administrative measure simply forbade them, lest new and weak converts from paganism should incur thereby any danger of relapse into idolatry, or be scandalized by certain superstitious excesses in no way approved by the ecclesiastical authority. ^ New view of Polynesian conversion to Christianity ^ Chessman, Stuart. "The Society of St. Hugh of Cluny » Post Topic » Hetzendorf and the Iconoclasm
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