professing

present participle and gerund of profess

(transitive) To administer the vows of a religious order to (someone); to admit to a religious order.
(reflexive) To declare oneself (to be something).
(ambitransitive) To declare; to assert, affirm.
(transitive) To make a claim (to be something); to lay claim to (a given quality, feeling etc.), often with connotations of insincerity.
(transitive) To declare one's adherence to (a religion, deity, principle etc.).
(transitive) To work as a professor of; to teach.
(archaic, transitive) To claim to have knowledge or understanding of (a given area of interest, subject matter).