What term refers to the practice of destroying religious images?

The Word icon comes from the Greek language. Icons are sacred or holy images particularly venerated by the Eastern Rite churches and to a smaller extent by the Roman Catholic Church. The destruction or damaging of these images is called "iconoclasm" (in Greek 'image breaking'). A person who commits such an act of sacrilege is referred as an "iconoclast". Iconoclasm most often refers to the destruction of images within one's own culture as a result of political or religious disorder. For example, if the military forces of one country destroyed the sacred images or statuary of another, one would call that sacrilege.