Sir Richard Arcos and 'Syncretism'

One notes that in Norfolk Green men can be found in Buxton and Scottow Churches, as well as the particularly fine example in the cloisters of Norwich Cathedral. Within England, especially the arable regions thereof, the Green man is almost ubiquitous in churches built in the decorated or perpendicular styles. Indeed, figurative carving reached its height in the decorated period, hence the name. Those green men visible in Perpendicular churches are hangovers from this, usually taking the form of corbels (as at Buxton) or bosses in vaulting (Norwich cathedral cloisters). In the cathedrals, we can find the strangest carvings, for example the Lincoln imp or the strange narrative cycles at Wells cathedral. These are not coded messages. Most of them are way too obvious to be this (you'd ask what these carvings meant).
On the appropriation of pagan symbols, we have a statue of St. Peter in Rome that has been alleged to have actually been Jupiter originally (not 'the Jew Peter' to make a silly pun), and the fact that a fair number of Churches have been built on the site of pagan ritual sites, e.g Earsham, Suffolk; The Hanging Church, Cairo; the Pantheon, Rome (conversion to church). But this does not mean a continuation of pagan worship, just the reverse. I mean, does anyone actually think that Islamic worship was being fused with Christian worship in the cathedral (formerly Great Mosque) at Cordoba, or that Mass was said during Friday Prayers at Aya Sophia or the Great Mosque at Damascus? I sincerely hope not! The act of conversion in these cases was an act of triumphalism over the vanquished religion, an appropriation of site and symbolism for the express purpose of destroying the former meaning, not an act of syncretism. Sort of like the erection of a temple to Venus on the top of the Holy Sepulchre. This is spitting on the grave of your enemy, like the transformation of the mausolea of Galerius and Diocletian into churches. Syncretism was the sin of Israel and, for that matter of Rome, does anyone but the sort of loony who believes he's a poached egg honestly think early Christians would have played ball meekly over syncretism? After all, if they'd accepted Emperor worship, there would have been no persecution.