Pierre Valdo

Pierre Valdo (also Pierre Valdès or Pierre Vaudès according to the sources) known as Pierre de Vaux (1140-1206) is a commercial rich person of Lyon. Passing by a religious crisis, following which it translated New Testament into vulgar language, it more probably sold (" donna") all its goods and became itinerant preacher. Others did as much of it. This movement called the Fraternity of the Poor of Lyon and founded about 1173, met hostility immediately.

In 1179, Valdo and one of its disciples went to Rome. They were well accommodated by the pope Alexandre III, but more coldly by the Curie. They had to explain their vision of the faith in front of a college of three ecclesiastics and in particular of the points which then made debate within the Church like universal priesthood, the Gospel in vulgar language, a greater poverty of the Institution… Valdo and its friends were not taken with serious, one questioned them on precise points of theology where they were unable to answer. The meeting thus does not lead to nothing, and Valdo and its disciples initially seen with mistrust were condemned to the council Lateran III of this same excommunicated year but not yet .

Persecuted, driven out Lyon, Valdo and its disciples settled in the high valleys of the Piedmont, then, in France, in the Luberon: the Église of Vaud was born. Excommunicated by the Council of Vérone in 1184, its doctrines was condemned by the Concile of Lateran in 1215.

It is under its impulse, paying its pocket the translation of several books of the Bible into of Provence about 1180, which will be born a popular passion for the reading and the propagation from the Bible in vernacular Language.

It would be interesting to establish a parallel between Pierre Valdo and his contemporary François d' Assise: both gave up fortune for Jesus-Christ. Both launched preachers on the roads. Pierre Valdo was not against the Church but wanted a church purer, simpler. The fact that it is laic and being unaware of in the field of theology the décrédibilisa near the clergy. However, unlike Francois, Valdo denied the real presence of Jesus-Christ in Eucharistie.

It would be interesting to still now announce the existence in Italy (with a diaspora in Latin America) of Chiesa Valdese, whose Pierre Valdo would be the inspirer. Of Vaud Piedmontese the refugees in the sheltered villages of the Eastern alpine slopes had maintained the principles of the Poor of Lyon.

Put in contact at the beginning of the 16th century with the Genevese Reform of Jean Calvin and Guillaume Farel, they joined there at the time of the synod of Chanforan in 1532. The Of Vaud ones become Protestant and their francophonie the growth to finance the first translation of the French Bible starting from Hebrew and of the Greek: it is the Bible known as of Olivétan (1535), big step in the promotion of the French language.

Protestantism of Vaud will know a difficult existence, made persecutions often parallel with those undergone by their co-religionists of France. It is only in 1848 - on February 17th) that their religious liberty was recognized by Piedmontese monarchy. Chiesa Valdese is asserted of a nonhierarchical and democratic design of the Church, considered as the assembly of the believers.

See too

Church of Vaud

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