The Waldesian Church

It is oldest non Catholic-Christian community that was founded and exists in Europe since before the Reformation. The Waldesians get their name from a merchant of Lyon, France, named Valdo (Waldo in english) who around the year 1170 distributed his wealth and started preaching the Gospel with the ideal of renewing the Church.
In the process he was excomunicated, but he and his followers, the Poor of Lyon, kept on preaching and formed small communities that were forced, because of repression, to meet secretly.

Present in Italy since the 13th century, above all in some valleys of Piedmont, the Waldesians joined the Protestant Reformation in 1532. They soffered bloody persecution and survived an attempt to exterminate them in 1686. Their political and civil rights were granted only in 1848.

Waldesian Churches in Rome

Piazza Cavour, 32; tel. 06.3215128
Worship: Sunday, h. 10.45 in Italian

Via IV Novembre, 107; tel. 06.6795426
Worship: Sunday, h. 9.30 in French; h. 10.45 in Italian