OUR HISTORY

Why, in addition to Italian Protestant, are we called Waldensians?

To reaffirm the bond which links daily witness to the experience of faith of the Medieval Waldensians and show this continuity in our country.

WALDO (from where the term Waldensian derives) was a merchant of Lyons, at a time just before Francis of Assisi (12th-13th Centuries), who decided, at the end of a deep spiritual crisis, to live the experience of the Apostles by following the teachings of Christ. He sold all his worldly goods and threw himself into the preaching of the Gospel. In making this decision, Waldo's intention was not to rebel against the Church, but instead to collaborate with its renewal by following the example set by the Apostles. He was, however, excommunicated together with a growing number of his followers. A Waldensian movement was born, known as "the poor ones", from Lyons in France and Lombardy in Italy, which spread out across Europe while gathering popular support.
When the Protestant Reformation began, in Europe, in the 16th Century, the Waldensians joined in organizing alternative congregations to Roman ones, with pastors to lead worship and the celebration of the sacraments. Throughout this period, the Protestant reality influenced many other places in Piedmont and throughout Italy. Catholicism retained its dominant position only because of the counter-reformation which had royal support. In spite of the many episodes of persecution, the Waldensians resisted fiercely, trusting in the help of the Lord , and were able to achieve recognition of their existence in a well-defined area of the Cozie Alps, today known as the "Waldensian Valleys". This nucleus of a few thousand Protestants was for nearly three centuries the vanguard of European Protestantism in Catholic territory.
Throughout the 18th Century the Waldensians were shunned and subject to discriminatory legislation which made them second-class citizens confined to their own area much like the Jews in their ghettos. Their civic and political rights were recognized only in 1848 by the "Letters Patent" sent by King Carlo Alberto on 17th February (this date is still celebrated even now by the Waldensians). The Catholic faith did remain the State religion, however, and as a result the modern principles of religious freedom and the separation of Church and State were not implemented. Neither the Catholic church nor Italian society were ready to accept this forward thinking change. And so, the Waldensians threw themselves into maintaining these principles throughout history from the Risorgimento to the Resistance, convinced of their importance for political and social change in Italy.