crypto-calvinist

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. One who is secretly a Calvinist: a term applied in Germany in the sixteenth century by the orthodox Lutherans to the Philippists or Melanchthonians, followers of Philip Melanchthon. They were accused of being secretly Calvinists, because they maintained the Calvinistic view of the eucharist, rejecting Luther's doctrine of consubstantiation (as it was called by them).