From Heretical Beggars to Protestant Organizers: The Reception of the Reformation by the Waldensians

Abstract

This article takes up the question of how the Poor Waldensians of Lyon, a predecessor of the medieval Franciscan movement, managed to become one of the main Reformed ecclesiastical bodies starting from the sixteenth century. The Italian Waldensians are an interesting ecclesiological case since during the time of the Protestant Reformation they underwent a significant transformation, from a nomadic and sectarian heterodox group to an ordered Reformed church body inserted within the broader international network of Reformed churches. This meant their survival through the support of Protestant diplomacy and public opinion, opening a door for Protestantism in the stronghold of Roman Catholicism. Their ideological move was not without changes on many ecclesiological points (Scriptures, sacraments, justification, etc.), in addition to the abandonment of their former pauperistic roots. The study shows how struggling religious minorities can at times undergo essential changes in order to guarantee their survival.

Discovering Waldensian Hospitality: An Exploratory Study

“…23-26;Tourn, 2008). Despite the challenges, the Waldensians endured and spread their beliefs in different parts of Italy, France, Switzerland and Germany, eventually joining the Protestant Reformation in 1532 (Palombaro, 2023). The recognition of civil and political rights came in 1848, when the king of Savoy Carlo Alberto promulgated the Lettere Patenti (Luzzi, 1998), while the full recognition of religious freedom came only in 1946, with the Italian Republican Constitution (Stephens, 2015).…”