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The Waldensians were the earliest of reformer groups and were founded by Peter Waldo in Southern France/Northern Italy who was a contemporary of the Roman Catholic mystic Francis of Assisi. The story of Saint Alexis was presented to Waldo via a traveling troubadour in his village and this compelled him to seek out a priest who could tell him more about living like Christ. He was dramatically changed by the Scripture verse found in Matthew 19:21 which states “sell all you have…and come follow Me”; the very same verse that launched Antony and his monastic movement 9 centuries earlier.
Peter Waldo sought to put the Scriptures into the common language of the people, preach to common people in a language they understand, and reform the obscenely wealthy monasteries who drew money from poor and stockpiled it (quite the opposite of the vision of Anthony – the first monk). They believed in the Biblical truth of a “universal priesthood” of believers, not just Rome-approved ‘clergy’.
The Waldensians would reject the veneration of saints (praying to dead Christians), sacerdotalism (an unscriptural practice whereby one can only achieve salvation through “sacraments” and these had to be administered by a Roman Catholic priest). This ridiculous invented doctrine was designed to put the control of heaven and hell in the hands of the Catholic hierarchy. Thankfully it was thrown out by the reformers.
The Waldensians also refuted the unbiblical doctrines of purgatory (paying off sin debt in burning fire after death), and transubstantiation (another bizarre unbiblical invention which claims that the bread and wine at Catholic mass LITERALLY becomes the flesh and blood of Christ and he is killed again and again and eaten). All of these imaginary doctrines are still practiced, taught and believed in the Catholic church today.
Although he was not ordained, Waldo began to preach the gospel of poverty to the commoners. Believers in Christ preaching without the authorization of the Roman Catholic church and the Archbishop of Lyons, Pierre Scise, ordered him to stop despite a Scriptural mandate given to all believers directly by the Lord Jesus to do exactly this. Wisely, Waldo refused and as a Bible-believing Christian, he stood on Scripture, particularly Acts 5:29 which states “Are we to obey God or man?” Scise then moved to petition Rome for Peter Waldo’s excommunication which would enable him to bring about even greater punishment on Waldo. Still Waldo persisted. This group was by all accounts the first “back to the Bible” movement in Church history and they paid dearly for it.
This group of believers sought permission from Pope Alexander III to establish a monastic order like Francis of Assisi or Augustine. The Pope refused Waldo’s request to establish an order and forbade him to preach to people except only at Archbishop Scise’s invite (the same Archbishop that sought to have him excommunicated). It was apparent that this “invite” would never come.
This was effectively a ban by the Pope on Waldo and his followers from carrying out any preaching whatsoever. In keeping with the faith once for all delivered to the saints by the Apostles Waldo and his followers, once again chose to obey God rather than man and continued to share the true gospel of forgiveness of sins. They also proceeded to translate at least part of the Scriptures into French which was the first of such efforts to do so .
These reforms infuriated the hierarchy of the Roman Catholics and their new Pope Adrian IV who, in 1184, excommunicated Waldo and by extension, his Waldensian followers. The Waldensians and their desire to rid the church of imaginary and contradictory doctrines were hated from the start by the Roman church and they were subsequently cast out of Lyons and HEAVILY persecuted by the Roman Catholics for the next 700 years – resulting in murders, torture and martyrdom. They had to fight (physically) with the Rome-controlled French army for their very right to survive.
The Waldensians came out of hiding to be part of the reformation and many of them joined Swiss Reformed movements of the time but this great little pre-reformer group still exists today mostly in the same region of the world that they began – southern France and Northern Italy. Along with the Anabaptists, this group has had to endure tremendous hardship at the hands of false Christians claiming to be “of Christ” but whose works showed they were/are nothing more than apostate “Christians” of an apostate church.
The Waldensians did not gain full civil rights in Italy until 1870 and the Catholics to this day feel they their murders of the Albigensians, Waldensians, Lollards, Hussites and Huguenots was justified and in the words of some “didn’t go far enough”. The persecution of Bible-believing Christians would only be abated when Rome lost power and control (via sacerdotalism) over European monarchs. If they were to regain this power it is quite possible they will pick up where they left off.
No one receives eternal life and eternal presence with God (from Whom all good things come – James 1:17), by belonging to the right church, denomination, world religion, or by having a particular world view. Rather only those who trust in the Lord Jesus (preached by the Apostles in the Bible) for their own sin. We will not trust in a Savior for sins that we either don’t believe we have or that we think aren’t deserving of hell. But the Bible says that ALL have sin and the wages of that sin is eternal separation from God (death). The good news is that the Bible says that you can know that YOU have eternal life. Click the button below to see if you are genuinely saved from your sins according to the Bible: