Byzantine Iconoclasm
It has been suggested that monasteries became secret bastions of icon-support, but this view is controversial. A possible reason for this interpretation is the desire in some historiography on Byzantine Iconoclasm to see it as a preface to the later Protestant Reformation in western Europe, in which monastic establishments suffered damage and persecution. In opposition to this view, others have suggested that while some monks continued to support image veneration, many others followed church and imperial policy.