The Casa Unionista ( Church Hall ) in Torre Pellice needs help !
The Consistory of Torre Pellice Church – the body that rules the life and ministry of the congregation – has decided to make a better use of the spaces provided by Casa Unionista in order to expand and serve not just the congregation but the whole community , above all the youngsters . The project will consist in several parts , starting with the first , financed by the Waldensian Church Mission , which is restoring and improving some rooms of the building in desperate need of attention . The aim is to attract adolescents , young people and young adults – but with no preclusion to others ! – who would like to practise and play music and other activities . This consists in work done on basement rooms , bathrooms and internal stairs as the minister Michel Charbonnier is pointing out in the picture shown . Donations are welcome !
850 years ago …
In 1174 in Lyon the rich merchant Valdo felt the call to become a real follower of Jesus : he gave all he had to the poor and started preaching the Gospel . His followers were called the poor men of Lyon but what brought trouble to him and the then called Valdesi ( Waldensians ) was the preaching which the Church by that time had already allowed only to the ordained clergy . Persecutions that on and off , large and small , continued until the Reformation . After the Reformation , especially when the Waldensians voted to become part of Geneva Reformation , they were fought against as Protestants until the seventeenth – eighteenth century and discriminated and secluded until the mi-nineteenth . Italy was born in 1861 as a liberal nation but Fascism re-established the special power of the Roman Catholic Church and the Republic voted in 1946 kept some of it in its Constitution ! Only in 1984 the Waldensian Church and the State signed the Intese that in principle started a new era of freedom . Still now often the fact that all religions are free and equal is only a commendable idea … The Intese were a remarkable goal though and they were achieved because of the determination of Giorgio Bouchard , the Moderator and the Prime Minister Bettino Craxi .
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