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Crypto-Christianity
Crypto-Christianity is the secret adherence to Christianity, while publicly professing to be another faith; people who practice crypto-Christianity are referred to as "crypto-Christians". In places and time periods where Christians were persecuted or Christianity was outlawed, instances of crypto-Christianity have surfaced.
Various time periods and places have seen large crypto-Christian groups and underground movements. This was usually the reaction to either threats of violence or legal action.
Secrecy is a motif which is found in the New Testament, particularly in Mark's Gospel. According to the Gospels, Jesus was concealing his mission or his messianic identity until a certain time, and he ordered his disciples to do the same, for e.g. in Mark 9:9, after the Transfiguration "Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen". This motif has been called "the messianic secret" and it has been interpreted in different ways. According to one interpretation, the historical Jesus wanted to avoid the immediate occurrence of a confrontation with Rome, because the Roman governor Pontius Pilate would not have tolerated the existence of a popular leader who would have referred to himself as the Messiah. There are also theological interpretations, of mixed historical and theological value. The New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman argues that Jesus was executed based on the claim that he was the "King of the Jews" a claim which also signalled the status of "Messiah" (A title of Hebrew origin, given to a promised man who would carry both kingly and religious authority as the anointed leader of Israel). Theologically and politically, the meaning of this title was possibly misunderstood by the Roman authorities.
During the initial development of the Christian Church in the Roman Empire, its members were frequently forced to practice their faith in secrecy.[citation needed] The official policy under Trajan forced Christians to make a choice: they could choose to recant their faith, which meant that they would be allowed to live, or they could choose not to recant their faith, which meant that they would be executed as martyrs. The term crypto-Christianity can be applied to that segment of the church population which concealed its Christian beliefs as a means to avoid persecution. In contrast, many Christians, including Polycarp, chose to retain their beliefs and suffer persecution, due to the fact that Christian doctrine did not allow Christians to publicly profess another religion, even if they held a mental reservation against it, which made it stricter than the Muslim practice of taqiyya and Jewish opinions on the matter, but many did so out of weakness:
All the inhabitants of the empire were required to sacrifice before the magistrates of their community 'for the safety of the empire' by a certain day (the date would vary from place to place and the order may have been that the sacrifice had to be completed within a specified period after a community received the edict). When they sacrificed they would obtain a certificate (libellus) recording the fact that they had complied with the order.
Christianity was introduced to Japan during its feudal era by Saint Francis Xavier in 1550. Christianity was banned in 1643 by the Tokugawa bakufu government, which viewed Christianity as disloyal and a threat to their power. Churches were destroyed, known Christians faced forced conversion to Buddhism and all signs of Christian influence were systematically eliminated. The ban was not lifted until 1858.
During this period, converts moved underground into a crypto-Christian group called kakure kirishitan or "hidden Christians". Crypto-Christian crosses and graves, camouflaged to resemble Buddhist imagery, can still be seen in the Shimabara Peninsula, Amakusa islands and far south in Kagoshima. Shūsaku Endō's acclaimed novel Silence draws from the oral history of Japanese Catholic communities pertaining to the time of the suppression of the Church.
An early attestation and justification of crypto-Christianism is found in an epistle of Patriarch Ioannes 14th (Ιωάννης ΙΔ') (1334-1347) of Constantinople to the Christians of Bithynia (Asia Minor). He says that "those [Christians] who by the fear of punishment [by the Muslims] want to believe and practice Christianity secretly, they will be also saved, provided they study god's orders as far as possible".
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Crypto-Christianity
Crypto-Christianity is the secret adherence to Christianity, while publicly professing to be another faith; people who practice crypto-Christianity are referred to as "crypto-Christians". In places and time periods where Christians were persecuted or Christianity was outlawed, instances of crypto-Christianity have surfaced.
Various time periods and places have seen large crypto-Christian groups and underground movements. This was usually the reaction to either threats of violence or legal action.
Secrecy is a motif which is found in the New Testament, particularly in Mark's Gospel. According to the Gospels, Jesus was concealing his mission or his messianic identity until a certain time, and he ordered his disciples to do the same, for e.g. in Mark 9:9, after the Transfiguration "Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen". This motif has been called "the messianic secret" and it has been interpreted in different ways. According to one interpretation, the historical Jesus wanted to avoid the immediate occurrence of a confrontation with Rome, because the Roman governor Pontius Pilate would not have tolerated the existence of a popular leader who would have referred to himself as the Messiah. There are also theological interpretations, of mixed historical and theological value. The New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman argues that Jesus was executed based on the claim that he was the "King of the Jews" a claim which also signalled the status of "Messiah" (A title of Hebrew origin, given to a promised man who would carry both kingly and religious authority as the anointed leader of Israel). Theologically and politically, the meaning of this title was possibly misunderstood by the Roman authorities.
During the initial development of the Christian Church in the Roman Empire, its members were frequently forced to practice their faith in secrecy.[citation needed] The official policy under Trajan forced Christians to make a choice: they could choose to recant their faith, which meant that they would be allowed to live, or they could choose not to recant their faith, which meant that they would be executed as martyrs. The term crypto-Christianity can be applied to that segment of the church population which concealed its Christian beliefs as a means to avoid persecution. In contrast, many Christians, including Polycarp, chose to retain their beliefs and suffer persecution, due to the fact that Christian doctrine did not allow Christians to publicly profess another religion, even if they held a mental reservation against it, which made it stricter than the Muslim practice of taqiyya and Jewish opinions on the matter, but many did so out of weakness:
All the inhabitants of the empire were required to sacrifice before the magistrates of their community 'for the safety of the empire' by a certain day (the date would vary from place to place and the order may have been that the sacrifice had to be completed within a specified period after a community received the edict). When they sacrificed they would obtain a certificate (libellus) recording the fact that they had complied with the order.
Christianity was introduced to Japan during its feudal era by Saint Francis Xavier in 1550. Christianity was banned in 1643 by the Tokugawa bakufu government, which viewed Christianity as disloyal and a threat to their power. Churches were destroyed, known Christians faced forced conversion to Buddhism and all signs of Christian influence were systematically eliminated. The ban was not lifted until 1858.
During this period, converts moved underground into a crypto-Christian group called kakure kirishitan or "hidden Christians". Crypto-Christian crosses and graves, camouflaged to resemble Buddhist imagery, can still be seen in the Shimabara Peninsula, Amakusa islands and far south in Kagoshima. Shūsaku Endō's acclaimed novel Silence draws from the oral history of Japanese Catholic communities pertaining to the time of the suppression of the Church.
An early attestation and justification of crypto-Christianism is found in an epistle of Patriarch Ioannes 14th (Ιωάννης ΙΔ') (1334-1347) of Constantinople to the Christians of Bithynia (Asia Minor). He says that "those [Christians] who by the fear of punishment [by the Muslims] want to believe and practice Christianity secretly, they will be also saved, provided they study god's orders as far as possible".