It’s the second week in August, which means it will soon be La Festa Valdese in Italy, la Fiesta de la Fraternidad Valdense in the Rio de la Plata, and the Waldensian Festival in Valdese, North Carolina, USA, not to mention the many others in Switzerland, Germany, England, and Scotland who will also be celebrating the “ties that bind” us all together.
The following report is taken from the South American Waldensian publication ESTE Periódico Valdense. That report in turn was based on an article by Waldensian Pastor Bruno Bellion that was published by the SOCIETÀ DI STUDI VALDESI in Torre Pellice, Italy, on February 17, 2006.
Along with the February 17 observation of the Waldensian emancipation, the festive gathering usually celebrated on August 15 is an annual celebration of the Waldensian reality understood in its broadest sense. August 15, like February 17, is the self-affirmation of a ‘people’ who share a common heritage but who, above all, are seeking to redefine themselves as a confessing, mission-oriented church. That’s how Pastor Bruno Bellion opened his treatise titled: A Disciplined Celebration: A History of the Waldensian Festival of August 15.
The Waldensian Fraternity Festival of August 15 is celebrated in several – but not all – of the Waldensian congregations in the Río de la Plata. It should be noted that in some congregations in the Rio de la Plata, the Waldensian Fraternity Festival is less an old tradition than a fairly recent addition. How a congregation observes August 15 depends a lot on its makeup and how it understands Waldensian history.
One thing is certain: Polenta (“cornmeal” in English) is a central feature of the festive meal on that day. Polenta is so essential to the celebration of August 15 that some people in South America even refer to the Waldensian Fraternity Festival as the “Polenta Festival.”
In his article, Pastor Bruno Bellion explains why congregations vary in their understanding of August 15. He says that over time, two lines of explanation have emerged.
The first explanation, builds on the assumption that these gatherings were already being held before the granting of civil rights to the Waldensians in 1848. Its logic is simple: Since August 15 (which for Roman Catholics was and remains the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary) was already an official holiday, the Waldensians could take advantage of that day – which had no religious significance to them – to organize their own outdoor gathering and to give that day their own meaning.
The second explanation, which developed later, connects the date to an event during the “Glorious Return” of 1689, when the Waldensians returned from exile in Switzerland. According to this second explanation, it was on an August 15 that the Waldensians crossed Lake Geneva and began their long and exhausting march back to their valleys. The logic of this second explanation is that August 15 gatherings were intended to call Italian Waldensians to a renewed commitment to their ongoing journey of faith in Italy. Pastor Bellini said he believed it is very likely that this interpretation was a later invention intended to give the celebration a more solemn and profound content.
The first known August 15 festivals date back to the third decade of the 19th century. They continued to develop but, according to Pastor Bellion, it was only in 1949 that the Italian Waldensian Synod officially recognized August 15 as a day for celebration and gave that celebration its current name, The Waldensian Festival. He noted that the following year the Waldensians in Uruguay and Argentina did the same.
Pastor Bruno Bellion was born in 1939 in Torre Pellice and studied at the Waldensian Theological Faculty in Rome and at the Evangelisch – Theologische Facultät in Bonn. Germany. He was ordained in 1966 and served in Milano, San Giovanni Lipioni in Abruzzo, Bobbio Pellice, Luserna S. Giovanni, Rorà, and Villar Perosa. Bruno died June 25, 2024, and is much missed by many.