Underground Church

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Underground churches are Christian communities that meet in secret and in private homes for religious services and gatherings because of governmental or spiritual repression and persecution .

With Crypto-Christianity ( "hidden Christianity") refers to the hidden exercise of the Christian faith, with a simultaneous public commitment to another religion. Cryptochrists ("hidden Christians") are people who follow Christian customs and traditions, although they formally belong to a different religious community.

Early Christianity was an underground church at the time of its persecution by the Romans . After the persecution began, the French Huguenots and the Bohemian Brothers organized themselves in secret, i.e. underground.

Demarcation

  • With "crypto denominations" such as crypto-calvinism , crypto-catholicism and crypto-Protestantism, it was a question of the practice of Christian rites that actually contradicted the ( Christian ) national denomination and were therefore concealed or disguised as sufficient for the national denomination . Such circumstances were, for example, in the foreground between denominationalization and the Church of England . From the 16th to the late 18th century were Ireland of public service and all the historic church building of the Anglican Church of Ireland reserved. This is how Catholicism was practiced in secret.
  • As crypto Jews are occasionally converts called (from Judaism to another religion) and their descendants, who continue to feel connected, contrary to their public religious affiliation of the old religion and practice it in secret Jewish culture and religion.
  • Taqīya is the prevailing principle in various Shiite groups , according to which it is permissible to disregard ritual duties and to hide one's own belief in the event of coercion or danger to body and property.

Spread and history

In Islamic countries there are religious communities operated as underground churches in small networks. In Iran , Afghanistan or Somalia , and especially in Saudi Arabia, they mostly consist of Christian converts from Islam , who are therefore unable to attend church services in the traditional churches. In Iran, leaders and members of these house churches are regularly arrested and sentenced to prison terms.

Albania and Kosovo

The origin of Christianity can be traced back to the time of the apostles. With the arrival of the Ottomans in the 14th century, the process of Islamization began in the then Christian Balkan region. This process took place relatively quickly, which is mainly due to the legal and economic advantages of converting to Islam. Muslims were treated on an equal footing in the Ottoman Empire, while those of other faiths had to pay a " poll tax " that was sometimes high . In addition to a syncretistic coexistence between followers of Christian and Muslim faith, in which the customs of both religions were mixed in a kind of crypto Christianity, developed. Albert Ramaj describes this in Crypto-Christianity in Kosovo : “Many Christian Albanians presented themselves to the Ottoman authorities as Muslims and had Muslim first names. So many Christians have a long time, e.g. Partly until the 19th century, led a double existence or a kind of double creed without the Ottoman authorities being particularly aware of this. "

People's Republic of China

Japan

Since the introduction of Christianity to Japan in 1550 by St. Francisco de Xavier , Christianity has been seen as a threat to the power of the Shogun . In 1643 Christianity was banned, all churches were destroyed and Christian influence was systematically wiped out. The ban was not lifted until 1858. During this time, the crypto-Christian group Kakure Kirishitan was formed in Japan .

Korea

In communist North Korea , the Catholic Faith operates in secret as an underground church. Here the personality cult around the leaders plays an additional burden to the secrecy of religiosity. The Christian aid organization Open Doors estimates that it consists of around 300,000 Christians.

Turkey

While the Christians in the Turkish Republic form a very small minority due to the genocide of the Armenians , the Aramaeans and the massacre of the Pontic Greeks , estimates of 100,000 to 120,000 Christians, the Armenians and Greeks formed a considerably larger group with approx. 3 million followers at the time of the Ottoman Empire. Regarding the existence of crypto Christians, Tessa Hofmann expresses herself as follows:

“In Turkey there are hundreds of thousands - according to estimates that are difficult to verify, even millions - whose Christian ancestors were forced to convert to Islam through tax discrimination or direct pressure. They have often been able to preserve their languages ​​and sometimes practice Christian (relic) customs. "

Cyprus

After the conquest of Cyprus by the Ottoman Empire in 1571 and the subsequent immigration of Muslims to the island, which was previously inhabited mainly by Orthodox and Catholic Christians, several thousand Christians converted to Islam. After Cyprus was leased from the Ottomans to the British, the Church refused to accept them. So many of these crypto Christians continued to be Muslim. The Linobambaki are crypto Christians of Cyprus.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Open Doors Germany eV: Focus on Iran. Retrieved November 9, 2017 .
  2. ^ Albert Ramaj : Crypto-Christianity in Kosovo . G2W (Zurich), 3/2007 35, SS 24-25 and Burime dhe dëshmi. Stublla në documents arkivore austriake, shkolla, kriptokrishtenizmi në Karadak. Stublla in Kosovo. The history, school and crypto-Christianity of the Karadak region . St. Gallen 2008.
  3. ↑ Albert Ramaj: Lazër Mjeda në argjipeshkvinë Shkup-Prizren mes 1909-1921 (Sipas arkivit Austriak, emërimi tij, laramanizmi, largimi nga Prizreni) . In: Imzot Lazër Mjeda - Mbrojtës dhe lëvrues i identitetit shqiptar , Albanisches Institut, St. Gallen 2011, ISBN 978-3-9523077-7-9 , pp. 47–172.
  4. ^ Open Doors Deutschland eV: North Korea. Retrieved November 9, 2017 .
  5. ↑ Tessa Hofmann (2007): Anyone who is a Christian in Turkey pays their price for it . Martyrs 2007: The Yearbook on Persecution of Christians Today, pp. 156–184
  6. ↑ a b Ilia Xypolia: British Imperialism and Nationalism Turkish Cyprus, 1923-1939 . Routledge, 2018, ISBN 978-1-138-22129-1 , pp. 14-15 .

literature

  • Peter Bartl: Crypto Christianity and forms of religious syncretism in Albania . In: Graz and Munich Balkanological Studies . Munich 1967. pp. 117–127 (= articles on knowledge of Southeast Europe and the Near East 2).
  • Daniel Klingenberg: Hidden Christians. Christian and Muslim at the same time: the double existence of the “crypto-Christians” in Kosovo . Tagblatt (St. Gallen), May 26, 2007, p. 27.
  • Shan Zefi: Islamization of Albanians through centuries . Prizren 2006.
  • Georg Stadtmüller: Islamization among the Albanians. In: JbbGOE, NF 3-30 / 1955, pp. 404-429.

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