# Protestantism in Italy

Protestantism in Italy comprises a minority of the country's religious population.
The Catholic Church is by far the largest Christian denomination, but Protestantism has a significant presence. While the CESNUR (an Italian think tank devoted to religious studies, especially on new religions in Italy) asserts that there are 442,377 Protestants in Italy, due to the difficulty of keeping accurate records regarding the proclaimed religion of immigrants to the country, that number likely reflects, at best, only an approximation of the actual number of Protestants in the country.
In 2022, non-Catholic Christians made up 4% of the population, while estimates suggest that 0.65% of the country has a Protestant background.

## History

The oldest known of Italy's Protestant churches, the Waldensian Evangelical Church, is a pre-Lutheran Protestant denomination, which was founded by Peter Waldo in the 12th century and, after the Protestant Reformation, adhered to Calvinist theology and became the Italian branch of the Reformed churches. The church's heartland is a cluster of Alpine valleys, the so-called "Waldensian Valleys" (Val Pellice, Val Chisone and Valle Germanasca), in western Piedmont. Since 1975 the Waldensians form a united church with the Methodist Evangelical Church in Italy. The ideas of Girolamo Savonarola also had spread around Florence around the 15th century. The Waldensians, also known as Waldenses (/wɔːlˈdɛnsiːz, wɒl-/), Vallenses, Valdesi, or Vaudois, are adherents of a church tradition that began as an ascetic movement within Western Christianity before the Reformation. Originally known as the Poor of Lyon in the late twelfth century, the movement spread to the Cottian Alps in what is today France and Italy. The founding of the Waldensians is attributed to Peter Waldo, a wealthy merchant who gave away his property around 1173, preaching apostolic poverty as the way to perfection.
Waldensian teachings came into conflict with the Catholic Church and by 1215 the Waldensians were declared heretical, not because they preached apostolic poverty, which the Franciscans also preached, but because they were not willing to recognize the prerogatives of local bishops over the content of their preaching, nor to recognize standards about who was fit to preach. Pope Innocent III offered the Waldensians the chance to return to the Church, and many did, taking the name "Poor Catholics". However, many did not, and were subjected to intense persecution and were confronted with organised and general discrimination in the following centuries. In the sixteenth century, the Waldensians were absorbed into the Protestant movement, under the influence of early Swiss reformer Heinrich Bullinger.
In some aspects the Waldensians of the Middle Ages could be seen as proto-Protestants, but they mostly did not raise the doctrinal objections characteristic of sixteenth-century Protestant leaders. They came to align themselves with Protestantism: with the Resolutions of Chanforan [fr] on 12 September 1532, they formally became a part of the Calvinist tradition. They are members of the Community of Protestant Churches in Europe and its affiliates worldwide. They were nearly annihilated in the seventeenth century.
The main denomination within the movement was the Waldensian Evangelical Church, the original church in Italy. In 1975, it merged with the Methodist Evangelical Church to form the Union of Methodist and Waldensian Churches—a majority Waldensian church, with a minority of Methodists. Another large congregation is the Evangelical Waldensian Church of Río de la Plata in Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay.
Congregations continue to be active in Europe (particularly in the Piedmont region of Northern Italy), South America, and North America. Organizations, such as the American Waldensian Society, maintain the history of the movement and declare their mission as "proclaiming the Christian Gospel, serving the marginalized, promoting social justice, fostering inter-religious work, and advocating respect for religious diversity and freedom of conscience."

## Historical sources

Most modern knowledge of the medieval history of the Waldensians originates almost exclusively from the records and writings of the Roman Catholic Church, the same body that was condemning them as heretics.$^{:66}$ Because of "the documentary scarcity and unconnectedness from which we must draw the description of Waldensian beliefs",$^{:87}$ much of what is known about the early Waldensians comes from reports like the Profession of faith of Valdo of Lyon (1180); Liber antiheresis by Durando d'Osca (c. 1187–1200); and the Rescriptum of Bergamo Conference (1218).
Earlier documents that provide information about early Waldensian history include the Will of Stefano d'Anse (1187); the Manifestatio haeresis Albigensium et Lugdunensium (c. 1206–1208); and the Anonymous chronicle of Lyon (c. 1220). There are also the two reports written for the Inquisition by Reinerius Saccho (died 1259), a former Cathar who converted to Catholicism, published together in 1254 as Summa de Catharis et Pauperibus de Lugduno (On the Cathars and the Poor of Lyon).

## Teachings

The Waldensians were associated by councils and papal decrees with the Cathars; however they differed radically from them: the Waldensians never espoused gnostic or dualist views or mysticism, and they did not reject the sacraments in total. The Waldensians initially saw themselves as a "church within the Church".
The Waldensians taught certain doctrines also held by the Catholic Church: they accepted the Trinity, and the earliest Waldensians staunchly defended the Eucharist. However, at least some of them later began to develop a more symbolic view of the bread and wine.
The earliest Waldensians taught the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist and affirmed the necessity of priests for the offering of the Mass. However they denied the right of sinful priests to give the Eucharist.
Early forms of the Waldensian Mass sought to recover the early Christian liturgy and contained a sevenfold repetition of the Lord's Prayer, with the Eucharistic elements being consecrated through the sign of the cross. The Waldensians observed the forty-day fast of Lent and practiced Friday abstinence.
Both Waldensian and Catholic sources, however, imply that the Waldensians rejected infant baptism, at least to some extent. This is seen from The Noble Lesson, which refers to Christ specifically calling to baptize those who believed, and Reinerius Saccho mentioning how the Waldensians believed that the "ablution which is given to infants profits nothing". Thus there seems to have been an understanding among the Waldensians that infants could be saved without baptism. They rejected confession to priests, the practice of venerating the saints, the use of oaths, secular courts and prayers for the dead.
Waldensians held and preached a number of doctrines as they read from the Bible. These included:
* The atoning death and justifying righteousness of Christ;
* The Godhead;
* The fall of man;
* The incarnation of the Son;
* A denial of purgatory;
* The value of voluntary poverty;
* Perhaps, the universal priesthood of believers, as according to de Bourbon they claimed that all good men are priests.
They also rejected a number of concepts that were widely held in Christian Europe of the era. For example, the Waldensians held that temporal offices and dignities were not meant for preachers of the Gospel; that relics were no different from any other bones and should not be regarded as special or holy; that pilgrimage served only to spend one's money; that meat might be eaten any day if one's appetite served one; that holy water was no more efficacious than rain water; and that prayer was just as effectual if offered in a church or a barn. They were accused, moreover, of speaking blasphemously of the Catholic Church as the harlot of the Apocalypse. They rejected what they perceived as the idolatry of the Catholic Church and considered the papacy as the Antichrist of Rome.
La nobla leyczon (The Noble Lesson), written in the Occitan language, gives a sample of the medieval Waldensian belief. Once it was believed that this poem dated between 1190 and 1240, but there is evidence that it was written in the first part of the fifteenth century. The poem exists in four manuscripts: two are housed at the University of Cambridge, one at Trinity College in Dublin, and another in Geneva.
Reinerius Saccho gave the following charges against the Waldensians:
* The Pope is the head of all errors
* The Monks are Pharisees
* Christians should obey God instead of the Prelates
* That no one is above one another in the church
* No one should kneel before a priest
* Tithes should not be given
* Bishops should not have royal rights
* They condemn the Catholic sacraments
* The Church has erred by prohibiting the marriage of the clergy
The Waldensians would, later in their history, adopt a number of doctrines from the Reformed churches due to the French Reformer Guillaume Farel, who introduced Reformation theology to Waldensian leaders. They officially adopted Reformed theology at a conference at Cianforan 1532. As a result of the conference, the Waldensians officially modified some of their previous positions such as their rejection of secular courts.

## History
### Origins

According to legend, Peter Waldo renounced his wealth as an encumbrance to preaching, which led other members of the Catholic clergy to follow his example. Because of this shunning of wealth, the movement was early known as The Poor of Lyon and The Poor of Lombardy.
Although they rose to prominence in the twelfth century, some evidence suggests that the Waldenses may have existed even before the time of Peter Waldo, perhaps as early as 1100. In 1179, at the Third Council of the Lateran, Pope Alexander III lamented that the Waldenses were a "pest of long existence". Groups of Italian Protestants had more comfortable lives in Switzerland, particularly in the Graubünden region.
On 17 February 1848 Charles Albert, king of Piedmont-Sardinia, granted religious freedom and civic emancipation to the Waldensians. Freedom of worship and equality of civic and political rights were later extended to Jews and to the other Italian states that were progressively annexed to Piedmont-Sardinia during the process of unification of Italy. Newer Waldensian congregations sprang up as well as the Free Christian Church (which lasted from 1852 to 1904) and the Evangelical Christian Church of the Brethren. Meanwhile British and American missionaries began to preach and establish Anglican, Methodist and Baptist churches.
In the early 20th century, missionaries spread the Pentecostal gospel throughout the country. Nowadays, most of those resulting Pentecostal congregations belong to the Assemblies of God in Italy, the Federation of Pentecostal Churches, and the Apostolic Church in Italy.
The Federation of Evangelical Churches in Italy (FCEI), formed in 1967, comprises all the historical Protestant churches of Italy (including the Union of Methodist and Waldensian Churches, the Lutheran Evangelical Church in Italy, the Baptist Evangelical Christian Union of Italy, and some minor churches), plus two observer members with a large following (the Federation of Pentecostal Churches and the Italian Union of Seventh-day Adventist Christian Churches).
Protestantism, especially in its Pentecostal forms, is thus on the rise. The Assemblies of God have the majority of their communities in the South and, according to Caritas Italiana, in 2012 the North of Italy was home to 850 "African Neo-Pentecostal churches".