The words Popery (adjective Popish) and Papism (adjective Papist, also used to refer to an individual) are mainly historical pejorative words in the English language for Roman Catholicism, once frequently used by Protestants and Eastern Orthodox Christians to label their Roman Catholic opponents, who differed from them in accepting the authority of the Pope over the Christian Church. The words were popularised during the English Reformation (1532–1559), when the Church of England broke away from the Roman Catholic Church and divisions emerged between those who rejected Papal authority and those who continued to follow Rome. The words are recognised as pejorative; they have been in widespread use in Protestant writings until the mid-nineteenth century, including use in some laws that remain in force in the United Kingdom. Popery and Papism are sometimes used in modern writing as dog whistles for anti-Catholicism or as pejorative ways of distinguishing Roman Catholicism from other forms of Christianity that refer to themselves as Catholic, such as Eastern Orthodoxy, Lutherans of Evangelical Catholic churchmanship or Anglicans of Anglo-Catholic churchmanship. Papist was used in the latter way in 2008 by the Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki at a conference opposing ecumenism, and the word sees some wider use in the Eastern Orthodox Church. History According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word Papist was first used in 1522. The word was in common use by Protestant writers until the mid-nineteenth century, as shown by its frequent appearance in Thomas Macaulay's History of England from the Accession of James II and in other works of that period, including those with no sectarian bias. The word is found in certain surviving statutes of the United Kingdom, for example in the English Bill of Rights of 1689 and the Scottish Claim of Right of 1689. Catholics have been excluded from the British throne for centuries. In 1701, Parliament passed the Act of Settlement, which requires that only a Protestant monarch could rule over England and Ireland. Under the Act of Settlement of 1701, no one who professes "the popish religion" may succeed to the throne of the Kingdom of England and the Act continues to apply to the United Kingdom and all of the Commonwealth Realms; until the Succession to the Crown Act 2013 amended it with effect from 2015, the Act of Settlement also banned from the throne anyone who married "a papist". Fears that Roman Catholic secular leaders