Dear Friends and Supporters ,
From the Editor
Thank you very much for your continuing interest and support with enquiries , purchases , donations and prayers ! PLEASE keep looking at our website www . waldensian . org . uk for updates and new items . We are also on Facebook : The Waldensian Church Missions . In January we had our first ever online AWAYDAY : report further on . Synod 2021 will take place in Torre Pellice 22 – 27 August in a slimmed down version , with no foreign delegates , online streaming , but with an ordination , Gabriele Bertin , whom I ’ ve known since he was 2 (!).
Congratulations to Rev . Peter Ciaccio for being a member of the Ecumenical Jury at Cannes Film Festival 2021 !
Giovanni Bernardini has completed his MA in Theology in Rome and will be supply minister at Milan Methodist Church for one month .
Meanwhile we now have a student of Theology training in the UK ! Read all about Kassim Conteh further on . Peter Ciaccio
I anticipate to our affectionate readers that the Winter issue is going to be a full size one , since we have plenty of stories , photos , documents to share !
Introducing Committee members : Eugenio Biagini I first met Eugenio Biagini ages ago , having organised a talk on the Waldensians by Rev Professor Emidio Campi in Cambridge . We had several friends in common — including Professor Giorgio Spini , and became friends immediately . When he married the lovely Almut Hintze we found that also with her we had friends in common ! Small world !
Eugenio Biagini is a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College and Professor of Modern and Contemporary History in the University of Cambridge . His teaching and research has focused on the history of liberalism and democracy , with
Eugenio Biagini
particular reference to Britain , Ireland and Italy since 1848 . He is the General Editor of the Bloomsbury Cultural History of Democracy ( 2021 ) and is currently writing a monograph on the Protestant and the Jewish minorities in southern Ireland . Though he has been in this country for over 40 years ( with breaks in both Newcastle upon Tyne and Princeton , NJ ), he still retains a connection with the Waldensian Church of Lucca , where he preaches from time to time . He is married to Almut Hintze , also an academic , originally from Heidelberg and the United Church of Baden , a specialist on Zoroastrianism and a Professor at SOAS ( London ). They have a son , William , and live in the village of Histon , on the northern periphery of Cambridge .
Cover photo : Calendar 2022 , July , photo by Vincenzo Morglia of Henri Peyrot , very likely in Val d ’ Angrogna .