Not all of the commentary and examination of "Bezhin Meadow" was overtly negative, however. In the years after the film closed its production, studios and film organizations in major Russian cities including Moscow, Leningrad, and Kiev held seminars to examine the lessons of the film, with some of the sessions lasting days. A former student of Eisenstein, Peotr Pavlenko, defended Eisenstein's work in the wake of "Bezhin Meadow". Grigori Alexandrov, a filmmaker Eisenstein had worked with previously, was denounced for "raising himself above the community" because he did not speak out against his associate. Esfir Shub suggested that as Eisenstein was not present in the USSR during the first five-year plan, he was unable to correctly present modern political lessons. The set-piece in "Bezhin Meadow" where the villagers desecrate the village church in response to Stepok's death, which was removed in later versions of the film, has been called "one of the great set-pieces in cinema", and a further demonstration of the Biblical imagery featured in the film. Among such visuals from the desecration sequence were an image of a girl in a mirror, framed as the Virgin Mary, and a statue of a crucified Christ held as if it were in a "pietà." Ivor Montagu likened Eisenstein's struggles with the film to Galileo's conflict with the Inquisition. In spite of the heavy criticisms he faced, Eisenstein was allowed by the politburo to continue his career, and he created and released the film "Alexander Nevsky" in 1938.