RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Waldenses
tory in the enjoyment of their newly acquired religious liberty. The Waldensian church of Turin has now two pastors and 700 church-members, and contributes yearly 63,000 francs. About the same time a station was begun in Florence under the charge of two pastors, but the grand duke of Tuscany promptly banished those brethren, while seven persons found by the police studying the Bible in a private house were exiled for a year. As soon as Tuscany became part of the united kingdom of Italy, however, the work was resumed, and the Waldensian faculty of theology, which had been instituted in Torre Pellice in 1855, was transferred to Florence in 1860 in the famous palace that belonged formerly to Cardinal Salirati, and which had been secured ‘through the interest of the minister of the Scotch church in Leghorn.
There are now two Waldensian churches in Florence (one of which is self-supporting), as well as the theological faculty with three professors and some ten students. The curriculum is for three years; then the students usually take a post-graduate course in some foreign university, as at Edinburgh, where they receive a scholarship; at Berlin,
where a bursary is provided by the Ho- 7. Walden- henzollern family, or at Geneva. After sian one or two years as probationers under
Churches the care of an elder pastor, the candi-
in Italy. dates to the ministry are ordained at
the age of twenty-five. In Florence, in the same Palazzo Salirati, is the printing-press of the mission work of the Waldenses, known as La Tipografia Claudiana, which publishes a monthly religious magazine, La Rivista cristiana, and supplies the churches with religious literature. In fifty years the society has circulated about 102,880 books or tracts, 2,000,000 religious almanacs, and 2,773,- 400 Bibles, New Testaments, and portions of the Scriptures. In 1860, when southern Italy and Sicily, under Garibaldi, became part of the united kingdom of Italy, work was begun in Naples, Palermo, and Messina with much success by Rev. Georgio Appia, a Waldensian pastor, who later became minister of a Lutheran church in Paris, and after the war of 1866 was stationed in Milan and Venice. When the Italian troops entered the city of Rome, Sept. 20, 1870, a Waldensian colporteur was with them with copies of the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans; and on the following Sunday the first Protestant service in Rome in the Italian language was held in a private house by Matteo Prochet (q.v.), president of the Waldensian committee on missions. On Nov. 25, 1883, a beautiful church on the Via Nazionale was dedicated. It can accommodate 500 people, and the congregation is self-supporting. In 1911 a second Waldensian church to accommodate 1,200 people was built in Rome across the Tiber, through the generosity of a wealthy American lady. In Rome are the headquarters of the missionary work of the Waldenses, and there is published the largest Italian Protestant paper, La Luce (10,000 copies weekly), which reaches many Italian immigrants in America.
As illiteracy was predominant in southern Italy and Sicily, the work of the Waldensian church in those parts of the country has been especially edu-
cational, and many day schools, evening schools, and Sunday-schools have been established. In Falerna (Catanzaro) such schools provide for 250 children, in Pachino (Sicily) for 200, in Vittoria (Sicily) for 250, in Riesi (Sicily) for 700, in Grotte (Sicily) for 500, in Palermo for 200, etc. The work
of the Waldensian Church has been
8. Educa- developed also along philanthropic tional and lines. Hospitals have been started in Philan- Turin, Genoa, Milan, and elsewhere, thropic and orphanages have been instituted Work in in many cities. The Gould Memorial Italy. |Home for Boys, founded in Rome by
Mrs. Bliss Gould, wife of the physician of the American embassy, under the care of the Waldensian Church, can accommodate fifty or sixty boys, the Comandi Home for Boys in Florence has some 150, the Ferretti Home for Girls in Florence has 40 inmates, and the Boyce Memorial Home for Girls in Bordighera has 40 or 50. Moreover, in all the principal cities of Italy, in connection with L’Union internationale des amies de la jeune fille, homes, called Foyers, have been opened to protect and help girls who would otherwise easily become the victims of the white slavers. Along temperance lines the Waldensian Church has started a strong movement in Italy and publishes a monthly paper advocating temperance, Bene sociale. The latest statistics for the mission field give 50 pastors, 18 evangelists, 9 teachers’ evangelists, 47 teachers, and 12 colporteurs, or a total of 136 workers; $24,000 church contributions, 12,000 church-members, and over 200 churches or stations, including one in Malta, two in Egypt, and one in Abyssinia. The missionary work of the Waldensian Church, in number of churches and stations, is now sixteen times larger than the mother church in the valleys of Piedmont. The churches in the principal cities of Italy are already self-supporting.
On account of the hundreds of thousands of Italian immigrants who come to America every year, some of them belonging to those churches or having been brought up in those schools in southern Italy or Sicily, the influence of the work is felt in this country. There are already 225 Italian Protestant churches in the United States and Canada, connected with various denominations, and having a total membership of no less than 12,000, some 100 of those churches having been started by Protestant
immigrants or having been ministered
9. Mission- to by pastors or missionaries from ary Work Italy. About 80 pastors, mission-
Outside aries, Bible women, and colporteurs
Italy. at work among the Italian immigrants
in America were formerly connected
with the Waldensian Church. The congregation of Grotte (Sicily) alone has started, through its members, three such churches in the United States. On the other hand, Italian immigrants returning to their native villages and towns in Italy are very often the means of initiating religious movements. Already 16 missionary churches under the care of the Waldenses have been organized in that way and through such agents. The Waldensian Church is not directly engaged in missionary work in heathen countries, although no less than 12 Waldenses,
Waldenses Waldenstroem