Forced conversion is the adoption of a religion or irreligion under duress. Someone who has been forced to convert to a different religion or irreligion may continue, covertly, to adhere to the beliefs and practices which were originally held, while outwardly behaving as a convert. Crypto-Jews, Crypto-Christians, Crypto-Muslims and Crypto-Pagans are historical examples of the latter.
Martyrdom of Saint Daniel Fasanella and companion martyrs, Terni, 18th century
Registration of boys for the devşirme. Ottoman miniature painting from the Süleymanname, 1558.
"St. Theodora Church in downtown Chişinău was converted into the city's Museum of Scientific Atheism". —Andrei Brezianu
1929 cover of the USSR League of Militant Atheists magazine, showing the gods of the Abrahamic religions being crushed by the first five-year plan
The Vandals were a Germanic people who first inhabited what is now southern Poland. They established Vandal kingdoms on the Iberian Peninsula, Mediterranean islands, and North Africa in the fifth century.
Vandalic gold foil jewellery from the 3rd or 4th century
A 16th century perception of the Vandals, illustrated in the manuscript "Théâtre de tous les peuples et nations de la terre avec leurs habits et ornemens divers, tant anciens que modernes, diligemment depeints au naturel" which means "Theater of all the peoples and nations of the earth with their various clothes and ornaments, both ancient and modern, diligently depicted in nature". Painted by Lucas de Heere in the second half of the 16th century and preserved in the
Neck ring with plug clasp from the Vandalic Treasure of Osztrópataka displayed at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, Austria.
Reconstruction of an Iron Age warrior's garments representing a Vandalic man, with his hair in a "Suebian knot" (160 AD), Archaeological Museum of Kraków, Poland.