Waldensians

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Waldensians

The Waldensians are a Christian denomination believing in poverty and austerity, founded around 1173, promoting true poverty, public preaching and the literal interpretation of the scriptures. Declared heretical, the movement was brutally persecuted by the Roman Catholic church during the 12th and 13th centuries and nearly totally destroyed, but the Waldensian Church survives to this day.

There are two prevailing theories about the identity and origin of the Waldensians. Some Waldenses, and other groups seeking to trace their history through the Waldenses, claim that the Waldenses history extends back to the apostolic church, while the mainstream academic view is that the Waldensians were followers of Peter Waldo (or Valdes or Vaudes).

Ancient origin story

Some Waldensians and others argue that the group has existed since the time of the apostles, a claim much disputed by modern scholars. They claim the Waldenses' name does not in fact come from Peter Waldo, as modern scholars contend, but from the area in which they lived. They claim Peter Waldo in fact got his name by association with the Waldenses. Dr. Peter Allix in the early 19th century said:

"Some Protestants, on this occasion, have fallen into the snare that was set for them...It is absolutely false, that these churches were ever found by Peter Waldo...it is a pure forgery." Ancient Church of Piedmont, pp.192, Oxford: 1821

"It is not true, that Waldo gave this name to the inhabitants of the valleys: they were called Waldenses, or Vaudes, before his time, from the valleys in which they dwelt." "Id., p. 182

On the other hand, he "was called Valdus, or Waldo, because he received his religious notions from the inhabitants of the valleys." History of the Christian Church, William Jones, Vol II, p.2.

The presence of dissent Christianity in Northern Italy and Southern France is ancient. In the 8th century the Bishop Claudius of Turin was appointed by the Holy Roman Emperor Luis in 817 to the see of Turin. Claudius, as Bishop of Turin, made a series of attacks on image worship, relics, pilgrimages, intercession of the saints, the adoration of the cross and every artistic rendition about biblical stories. After his tenure the Turin church returned to Roman influence. The figure of Claudius remained so influential in later Waldensianism, that today the official publishing house of the Waldensian Church is named after him, "Editrice Claudiana".

Later, other medieval reformers acted in that area, like Peter of Bruys, Henry the Monk, and the Arnaldists.

Mainstream academic origin story

The mainstream academic view, shared officially by the Waldense Church and the Waldense Scholarship, is that the Waldensians started with Peter Waldo, who began to preach on the streets of Lyon in 1173. He was a wealthy merchant and decided to give up all his worldly possessions, he was sick of his own affluence, that he had so much more than those around him. He went through the streets throwing his money away and decided to become a wandering preacher who would beg for a living. He began to attract a following. Waldo had a philosophy very similar to Francis of Assisi.

Preaching required official permission, which he was unable to secure from the Bishop in Lyon, and so in 1179 he met with Pope Alexander III at the Third Council of the Lateran and asked for permission to preach. Walter Map, in De Nugis Curialium, narrates the discussions at one of these meetings. The pope, while praising Peter Waldo's ideal of poverty, ordered him not to preach unless he had the permission of the local clergy. He continued to preach without permission and by the early 1180s he and his followers were excommunicated and forced from Lyon. The Catholic church declared them heretics - the group's principle error was "contempt for ecclesiastical power" - that they dared to teach and preach outside of the control of the clergy "without divine inspiration". They were also accused of the ignorant teaching of "innumerable errors" and condemned for translating literally parts of the Bible which were deemed heretical by the Church. It was not however condemned for translating into the vernacular, as there already existed vernacular translations. Thus, they were considered heretics because the clergy saw them as a danger to what they understood as the divinely sanctioned church hierarchy.

In 1207, one of Waldo's early companions, Durand of Osca, converted to Catholicism after debating with Bishop Diego of Osma and St. Dominic. Durand later went to Rome where he professed the Catholic faith to Innocent III. Innocent gave him permission to establish the Poor Catholics, a mendicant order, who continued the Waldensian preaching mission against the Cathars. The Franciscans and Dominicans later supplanted the Poor Catholics.

Waldo and his followers developed a system where they would go from town to town and meet secretly with small groups of Waldensians. There they would confess sins and hold service. A traveling Waldensian preacher was known as a barba and could be either man or woman. (The idea of a female preacher was novel, almost revolutionary in and of itself, for the era.) The group would shelter and house the barba and help make arrangements to move on to the next town in secret.

The Roman Catholic response to Waldensians

The members of the group were declared schismatics in 1184 in France and heretics more widely in 1215 by the Fourth Council of the Lateran's anathema. The rejection by the Church radicalized the movement, in terms of ideology the Waldensians became more obviously anti-Catholic - rejecting the authority of the clergy, declaring any oath to be a sin, claiming anyone could preach and that the Bible alone was all that was needed for salvation, they also rejected the concept of purgatory and the idea of relics and icons.

Much of what is known about the Waldensians comes from reports from Reinerius Saccho (died 1259), a former Cathar who converted to Catholicism and wrote two reports for the Inquisition, Summa de Catharis et Pauperibus de Lugduno "Of the Sects of Modern Heretics" (1254) (first rediscovered and printed in S. R. Maitland), Facts and Documents Illustrative of the History, Doctrine, and Rites of the Ancient Albigenses and Waldenses, (London, 1832). Reinerius' lists of their tenets reveals that the heirs of Waldo considered themselves the true representatives of the apostolic Christian church, that statues and decorations were superfluous, that their obedience was to God, not to prelates, of whom the pope was the chief source of errors, and that no one is greater than another in the church, following Matthew 23: "All of you are brethren." The Waldensians believed that the Pope and bishops were guilty of homicides because of the inquisition and the crusades. They believed that the land and its people should not be divided up, that bishops and abbots ought not to have royal rights and that the clergy should not own possessions. They purportedly believed that none of the sacraments, including marriage, were of any effect. They also denied the validity of the secular use of force, which they considered a mortal sin. However, the inquisitors often noted the Waldensian belief in early church fathers. Moreover, the Waldenses never developed a church entirely independent from the Catholic Church.

They absorbed a number of other groups including the Humiliati and had their own internal split and reformation with the Lombards. Because the Cathars had also been condemned around the same time, the Waldensians became associated with them as part of the target for the Albigensian Crusade from 1208. However the Waldensians and Cathars were not similar in their core beliefs. Waldo possibly died around this time, possibly in Germany, but he was never captured and his fate uncertain.

As early as the twelfth century, the Waldensians were granted refuge in Piedmont by the Count of Savoy. While the House of Savoy itself remained strongly Roman Catholic, this gesture angered the Papacy. While the Holy See might be willing to tolerate the continued presence of large Muslim populations in the Normans' Kingdom of Sicily, it was less than willing to accept a new Christian sect in Piedmont.

The Albigensians, and other Bogomil sects related to the gnostics, were apparently believers in Dualism and Binitarianism. The Waldensians were not. However, both the Waldensians and Albigensians were folk movements that involved public preaching. In the thirteenth century, there was a substantial enough problem with clerical literacy that preaching to the laity in churches was hampered. Therefore, the field was somewhat clear for peripatetic evangelism of these heretical and protesting movements. At the same time, the lack of ecclesiastical structure and training meant that each sect could be at wide variance with others. The Waldensians became a diverse movement as it spread out across Europe in France, Italy, Germany, and Bohemia.

Unlike the Cathars, the Waldensians survived elsewhere in Europe, remaining strong in France and also having a presence in northern Italy, southern Germany and down into central Europe. Particular efforts against the movement began in the 1230s with the Inquisition seeking the leaders of the movements. The movement had been almost completely suppressed in southern France within twenty years but the persecution lasted into the 14th century.

A crusade against Waldensians in the Dauphiné region of France was declared in 1487, but Papal representatives continued to devastate towns and villages into the mid 16th century as the Waldensians became absorbed into the wider Protestant Reformation. Moreover, the Waldensian absorption into Protestantism led to their transformation from a sect on the edge of Catholicism that shared many Catholic beliefs into a Protestant church adhering to the theology of John Calvin, which differed much from the beliefs of Peter Waldes.

Reinarius Saccho, Of the Sects of the Modern Heretics 1254. e-text of this list of Waldensian beliefs

Assessment by later groups

When the news of the Reformation reached the Waldensian Valleys, the Mensa Valdese decided to seek fellowship with the nascent protestantism. A Synod held 1526 in Laus, a town in Chisone valley, decided to send envoys to examine the new movement.

The Swiss and French Reformed churches sent William Farel and Anthony Saunier to attend the Synod of Chamforan, which convened in October, 12th 1532. Farel invited them to join the Reformation and to leave secrecy. A Confession of Faith, with Reformed doctrines, was formulated and decided to worship openly in French. Outside the Piedmont the Waldenses joined the local protestant churches in Bohemia, France and Germany. After they came out of clandestinity, the French king, Francis I, armed a crusade against the Waldensians of Provence, leading to a genocide that exterminated them in France in 1545.

Later groups such as Anabaptists and Baptists sometimes point to the Waldensians as an example of earlier Christians who were not a part of the Roman Catholic Church, and held beliefs similar to their own, including the belief in Believers Baptism and opposition to pedobaptism. The English poet John Milton in one of his sonnets professes a belief that the Waldensians are the true followers of Christ, who have preserved his original teachings, in contrast with Roman Catholicism, which Milton firmly believed had distorted the original Christian message. The Mennonite book Martyrs Mirror lists them in this regard as it attempts to trace the history of believer's baptism back to the apostles.

Modern Waldensians

In Italy

After many centuries of harsh persecution, they acquired legal freedom under the King Carlo Alberto of the Piemonte, in 1848. Since then the Waldensian church developed and spread through the Italian Peninsula. In the 1970s the Italian Waldensian church joined the Methodists to form the Chiesa Evangelica Valdese (Waldensian Church), which is a member of the World Council of Churches.

In the United States of America

Since colonial times there have been Waldensians who found freedom in the American shores, as marked by the presence of them in New Jersey and Delaware. William Paca, one of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence was a descendant of Waldenses immigrants.

In the late 1800s many Italians, among them Waldensians, immigrated to the United States. They founded communities in New York City, Chicago, Monett, Galveston and Rochester as well as the most notable Waldensian settlement in North America in Valdese, North Carolina, where the congregation uses the name Waldensian Presbyterian Church.

By the 1920s the Waldensian churches and missions merged into the Presbyterian Church due to the cultural assimilation of the second and third generations.

The American Waldensian Society is a cultural organization that works to preserve their millennial heritage among their descendants. In addition, for 39 years, the Old Colony Players in Valdese, North Carolina, have staged "From this Day Forward," an outdoor drama telling the story of the Waldenses and the founding of Valdese.

In South America

The first Waldensian settlers from Italy arrived in South America in 1856 and today the Waldensian Church of the Río de La Plata has approximately 40 congregations and 15,000 members shared between Uruguay and Argentina.

In Germany

In 1698 about 3,000 Waldenses fled from Italy and came to South Rhine valley. Most of them returned to their Piedmont valleys, but those who remained in Germany were assimilated by the State Churches (Lutheran and Reformed) and 10 congregations exist today as part of the Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland.

Milton

Many early Protestants regarded the Waldensians as a proto-Protestant sect (a la Wyclif and Huss) who were unjustly persecuted by Catholics. As such, when, in the mid-17th century, the Duke of Savoy unleashed a systematic persecution of Waldensians, the English were particularly upset. The most famous remnant of this persecution is John Milton's 1655 poem "On the Late Massacre in Piedmont."

External links

Chiesa evangelica valdese, Italy
Waldensian Presbyterian Church, Valdese, North Carolina, USA
Town of Valdese, North Carolina, USA
The Waldensians - a fairly in-depth article that looks at the origins of the Waldensians, their history and beliefs
The Waldenses - an (antagonist) in depth look from the Catholic Encyclopedia

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