This summer Italian Waldensians and Methodists will celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Patto di Integrazione delle Chiese Metodiste e Valdesi – or in English the Pact of Integration of the Methodist and Waldensian Churches. As part of that celebration, the Waldensian Museum in Torre Pellice is hosting a multimedia exhibition titled “From Missions to Church – 160 years of Methodism in Italy.” The exhibition retraces the various stages of Methodist witness in Italy and tells how Italian Methodism matured from being a movement supported primarily by missionaries from Britain and the United States to its current integration with the Waldensian Church.
The exhibition, curated by Davide Rosso, uses historical documents and photographs, audiovisual presentations, and interactive installations to tell Italian Methodism’s story of faith, courage, and ever-widening circles of inclusion.
When, in 1859, the Wesleyan Missionary Society of London sent its general secretary to explore possibilities for Methodist witness in Italy, the Risorgimento movement for reunification of Italy was already in full force.
Soon after the general secretary’s return to England, the Rev. Henry Piggott and his co-workers arrived in Italy. It was their preaching that gave birth to the Wesleyan Methodist Church. Their work was first limited to northern Italy but beginning in 1864 it spread through the South.
Then, in 1871, the year after the Pope’s temporal power was confined to the Vatican City, the Methodist Episcopal Missionary Society of New York sent the Rev. Leroy Vernon (pictured below). Vernon and his colleagues began their work in Modena, Bologna, Florence, and Rome.
Piggott and Vernon did not fit the classic stereotype of nineteenth century missionaries. They had a very clear understanding of the social and political challenges facing their adopted country. They joined with other Italian Protestants to build an Italy-wide Protestant Reformed movement that was completely in tune with the spirit of the Italian Risorgimento.
However, after Mussolini and the Fascists came to power in the 1920s, the centers for education and social ministry they had founded were forced one by one to close. The government removed some ministers from their churches and revoked the permission for others to preach. In the face of Fascist repression, the watchword for Italian Methodism during the decade from 1935 to 1945 was “resist at all costs.”
In May 1946, the two branches of Italian Methodism united, becoming a district of the British Methodist Conference. In 1948, the Italian Methodist Church took part in the founding of the World Council of Churches. In 1962, Italian Methodism achieved full autonomy with its own Conference. In 1975, the process of federation between the Waldensian and Methodist churches began.
This story is based on reports in Italian Protestant media.
