Aniconism in Christianity

Christianity has not generally practised aniconism, or the avoidance or prohibition of types of images, but has had an active tradition of making and venerating images of God and other religious figures. However, there are periods of aniconism in Christian history, notably in the Early Christian church, in the Byzantine iconoclasm of the 8th century, and following the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century, when Calvinism in particular rejected all images in churches, and this practice continues today in Calvinist churches, fundamentalist Christianity, as well as among other evangelicals.

However, the use of religious icons and images continues to be advocated in the highest level by religious leaders of major Christian denominations such as Anglicans and Catholics. The veneration of icons is also a key element of the doxology of the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Christian aniconism has only very rarely covered general secular images, unlike aniconism in Islam; Anabaptist groups such as the Amish are rare exceptions.

Several voices in Early Christianity expressed "grave reservations about the dangers of images", though contextualizing these remarks has often been the source of fierce controversy, as the same texts were brought out at intervals in succeeding centuries. Ernst Kitzinger described the mentions of Christian views on Christian images before the mid-6th century as "scattered and spotty", and of an earlier period wrote:

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