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When Jon Huss revolted against the authority of the Roman Catholic Church, it was not another peasant revolt but a well reasoned attack aimed at the roots of papal authority and doctrine. Huss was a scholar lecturing at the University of Prague. He taught that the Bible was the sole authority for faith and practice, and salvation by faith. He was promised safe conduct to the Council of Constance to answer for his views, but was seized and burned at the stake anyway. At this point the population of sections of modern Austria and Czechoslovakia rose in open revolt.
One new twist in this revolt was that some fought when attacked by the inevitable papal army. In the same way that the Paulicians had earlier, they actually fought the Roman Catholic Church to a standstill in the 1400's. The fortress that they later formed at Tabor gave one group of them the name Taborites.
When word of this revolution reached the Waldensians, they reacted with excitement. They promptly dispatched several "barbas" ("uncles", the term used by Waldensians for their teachers)70 to go to Bohemia and learn what was happening. There followed a series of meetings between leaders of the two groups which led to great benefit for the Waldensians. They received from the Hussite movement training in theology which was to prove very helpful to future generations.
As a result, the barbas during this period were capable of reading theological works in Latin, of studying mathematics, and knowing enough botany and rudimentary medicine to permit them to deal with simple diseases. Their activity in ministerial tasks likewise became more organized, rigorous and systematic than before. A young Waldensian whose gifts and resolve marked him for service in the community would be apprenticed to an experienced barba for a period of several years. After becoming familiar with the various places to visit, learning languages and studying the Bible more deeply, the young barba would then visit the different clandestine scholae or underground schools.71
It is also interesting to note that although the Waldensians had almost always been pacifist, on one occasion they raised money for the Bohemian war chest. On another occasion, at Prali, a pitched battle between the local populace and the crusaders ended by Count Hugo pulling back his troops.72
The Reformation
Tourn states that,
Relentless inquisition, crusade and pillage had done their efficient work, so that by the end of the 15th century a veil of silence hung over much of the Waldensian world.73
Yet the Waldensians still existed. By now, they were almost exclusively concentrated in the Alpine valleys that had served as their main stronghold all along.
When the reformation erupted in 1517, the Waldensians were eager to join forces with the new fellow-revolutionists. We know that as early as the year 1526, a general assembly of Waldensians held at Laus, in the Chisone valley, was so eager to make personal contact with the new movement that it made the decision to send a deputation across the Alps.74
Luther, who so strongly denounced the Hussites at first, discovered during the Liepzig Disputation that he agreed with Huss. Later he said "We were all Hussites without knowing it!"75 Eventually, he wrote a preface to the Taborite Confession of Faith, in which he referred to the Hussites as "Waldensians".
No official ties were forged between the Waldensians and the other Protestant Churches until 1532. In that year, the Synod of Chanforan was held, in which the Waldensians became a part of the reformed Church based in Geneva. For the Reformed, Farel led the negotiations, which were troubled, because of the Waldensian insistence on the separation of church and state, as well as other doctrinal differences.76 The Swiss reformers also called on the Waldensians to put an end to confessions, fasts and "meritorious Sundays," and to introduce an emphasis on the doctrine of predestination.77
In the same year, the Geneva Reformers helped the Waldensians do a new translation of the Bible. The task was entrusted to Olivetan, a relative of Calvin's, who retired secretly to a village in the Alps to do his work.
The remarkable translation he produced (for which Calvin himself wrote the Preface) has come to be known as the "Olivetan Bible," the first of the French Reformation. Printed in Neuchatel, it was delivered to the Waldensians in 1535.78
Many of their worst trials, including massacres, were still ahead of them in 1532, but they were now a part of an international movement. Because they were no longer alone as an isolated sect, and because their doctrine was essentially reformed, they pass beyond the scope of this study.
It is questionable whether the Waldensians ever exceeded 100,000 functional members at any one time before the Reformation. Yet when one considers that they existed in some force for almost 350 years before the reformation began, it is evident that many generations, and therefore many times their total were affected.
No one knows, even roughly, the total number killed in the persecutions the Waldensians endured, but the lowest estimates must run into the several tens of thousands. It is unlikely that any group other than the Anabaptists and Jews can point to a comparable history of prolonged universal persecution. Their amazing survival makes them different, than the other schismatic groups that began at the same time. The crime which precipitated such suffering was their desire to exercise their birthright in the Body of Christ according to the New Testament--the practice of their own gifts and ministries
The Waldensian Church still exists today in several locations.79 Unfortunately, the fusion with the Reformed Church has not resulted in the rapid ferment of outreach that once characterized the movement. Nevertheless, the fact that they remain in existence at all is a strong testimony, and perhaps a galling reminder to some, that the effort to disenfranchise the laity from their right to minister will be frustrated by the power of the Holy Spirit Himself.
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