Nicodemite
Person seen as professing orthodoxy to mask actual belief / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dear Wikiwand AI, let's keep it short by simply answering these key questions:
Can you list the top facts and stats about Nicodemite?
Summarize this article for a 10 year old
A Nicodemite (/ˌnɪkəˈdiːmaɪt/)[1] is a person suspected of publicly misrepresenting their religious faith to conceal their true beliefs.[2][3] The term is sometimes defined as referring to a Protestant Christian who lived in a Roman Catholic country and escaped persecution by concealing their Protestantism.[4][5]
The word is normally a term of disparagement. Introduced into 16th-century religious discourse, it persisted in use into the 18th century and beyond. Originally employed mostly by Protestants, it was usually applied to persons of publicly conservative religious position and practice who were thought to be secretly humanistic or reformed.
In England during the 17th and 18th centuries the term was often applied to those suspected of secret Socinian, Arian, or Deist beliefs.[6]