professing

verb
  1. 1

    To administer the vows of a religious order to (someone); to admit to a religious order. (Chiefly in passive.)

  2. 2

    To declare oneself (to be something).

  3. 3

    To declare; to assert, affirm.

  4. 4

    To make a claim (to be something); to lay claim to (a given quality, feeling etc.), often with connotations of insincerity.

  5. 5

    To declare one's adherence to (a religion, deity, principle etc.).

  6. 6

    To work as a professor of; to teach.

  7. 7

    To claim to have knowledge or understanding of (a given area of interest, subject matter).

Source: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/profess, https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/professing