Gary J Sibio
A statue of Peter Waldo at the Luther Memorial in Worms, Germany.
The Waldensians, also known as Waldenses, Vallenses, Valdesi or Vaudois, are a sect very similar to Protestantism but which preceded the Reformation by about three and a half centuries. The movement began in Lyon, France in 1173 by Peter Waldo. They spread quickly and soon made it to the Cottian Alps between what is now known as France and Italy.
Waldo was a rich merchant who, much like Francis of Assisi, gave away his property and formed the Poor Men of Lyon. Many Catholics, including clergy, followed him. They preached apostolic poverty as the road to perfection which brought them into conflict with the Catholic Church which declared them heretical and persecuted them.
In fact, Pope Alexander III met with Waldo and one of his followers in 1179 and gave them the opportunity to explain their teachings. They also explained themselves to a panel of three clergy which led to their teachings being condemned by the Third Lateral Council in 1179 but the men themselves were not immediately excommunicated. This occurred in 1184 under Pope Lucius III after they refused to conform their beliefs to the council’s decision. In 1211 about 80 Waldensians were burned at the stake in Strasbourg. Further decrees condemning the group were issued over the next few centuries. There was more persecution over the centuries but not executions. In 2015 Pope Francis visited the Waldensian Temple in Turin and apologized for the treatment they had received at the hands of the catholic Church.
During the Reformation they aligned themselves with the Calvinists and greatly influenced the thought of Swiss reformer Heinrich Bullinger. They took the name Waldensian Evangelical Church and, in 1975, with approximately 30,000 members in Italy, Argentina and Uruguay, they merged with the 5,000-member Methodist Evangelical Church to form the Union of Methodist and Waldensian Churches.
Today they are still active in Europe, South America and North America.
Many of the beliefs of the Waldensians are pretty similar to the beliefs of Evangelical Protestants today. They believe in the atoning death and justifying righteousness of Jesus, the Trinity, the fall of mankind in the Garden of Eden, the incarnation and the denial of Purgatory. They still maintain a preference for voluntary poverty.They believed that the Bible was the word of God and believed in sola scriptura long before Martin Luther popularized the doctrine. Sometime between 1175 and 1185 Waldo either commissioned a cleric to translate the New Testament into Arpitan, the vernacular of the region, or worked on it himself.
They also rejected the veneration of relics, the value of pilgrimages, sacramentals such as holy water and the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. They believed that the Catholic Church was the prostitute in the book of Revelation and guilty of idolatry and the pope was the Antichrist.
Text © 2018 Gary J. Sibio. All rights reserved.
Never heard this before, thank you for the knowledge.
They are pretty obscure. I had heard of the group but really didn’t know much about them.
Thank you. I can’t tske credit for the photo. It’s a public domain image I found on the Internet.
Well done!!! Nice post!
Thanks, Georgi. I appreciate it.
How interesting. I was familiar with some of this history, but never heard the term Arpitan before. Come to find out I had heard of the language but it was called something else back when I was in college. That is a remarkable statue. Thank you for a fine post.
Thanks, Ann. I’m glad you enjoyed it.
Great article and very informative. Thank you for sharing I like such post
You’re welcome. I’m glad you enjoyed it.