Waldensians

Waldensians
Waldensian symbol Lux lucet in tenebris ("Light glows in the darkness")
Classification	Protestant
Orientation	Reformed
Theology	Theology of Peter Waldo and other Waldensian theologians, nowadays mainly theology of John Calvin and other Reformed theologians
Region	Italy, Germany, Argentina, United States, Uruguay, and elsewhere
Founder	Peter Waldo
Origin	c. 1173 Lyon, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, France
Separated from	Roman Catholic Church

The Waldensians (also known variously as Waldenses (/wɔːlˈdɛnsiːz, wɒl-/), Vallenses, Valdesi or Vaudois) are a Christian movement founded by Peter Waldo circa 1173.

Waldensians merged into the larger Protestant movement with the outbreak of the Reformation, and became a part of the wider Reformed tradition after the views of John Calvin and his theological successors in Geneva proved very similar to their own theological thought. The Waldensian movement first appeared in Lyon in the late 1170s and quickly spread to the Cottian Alps. Today, the Waldensian movement is centered on Piedmont in northern Italy, while small communities are also found in southern Italy, Argentina, Germany, the United States, and Uruguay.

The movement originated in the late twelfth century as the Poor Men of Lyons, a band organized by Peter Waldo, a wealthy merchant who gave away his property around 1173, preaching apostolic poverty as the way to perfection. Waldensian teachings quickly came into conflict with the Catholic Church. By 1215, the Waldensians were declared heretical and subject to intense persecution; the group was nearly annihilated in the seventeenth century and were confronted with organized and generalized discrimination in the centuries that followed.