conventicle

Clandestine worship meeting

A conventicle is a secret or unauthorized religious meeting, especially one held by dissenters from an established church.

The term arose in England when Nonconformists—Quakers, Baptists, and others—gathered privately after being banned from public worship: They risked imprisonment to attend conventicles in barns and private homes.

The word carries a faint air of secrecy and subversion.

clandestine

underground

Below ground or countercultural

furtive · surreptitious · stealthy · unauthorized · illicit · hush-hush · veiled · discreet · concealed · whispered

dissent

schism

Formal organizational fracture

  • heresyBelief opposing official doctrine
  • apostasyRenunciation of former beliefs
  • defianceOpen resistance to authority

protest · noncompliance · disaffection · dissenter · nonconformist · separatist · rebel · free-thinker · iconoclast · radical

fellowship

community

Collective of connected people

unity · gathering · assembly · meeting · bonding · companionship · kinship · togetherness · believers · flock

historical

Puritans

English Protestant reformers

  • QuakersPacifist Protestant denomination
  • PresbyteriansElder-governed Protestant denomination members
  • BaptistsImmersion-practicing Protestant denomination

Huguenots · Restoration

worship

prayer

Address to deity

minister · psalms · hymns · piety · scripture · sacrament · liturgy · rite · communion · exhortation

Opposites
religious legitimacy/authorization

conventicleestablished church

Officially recognized national religion

parish church · high church

openness/secrecy

conventiclepublic worship

Collective religious ceremony

public service

conformity/dissent

conventiclestate religion

Government-backed official faith

Family

convention, conventional, covenant, convene, convent, unconventional, coven, convocation, reconvene

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