Welcome!
The Waldensians welcome your interest in learning more about them. If you have questions this website doesn’t answer, or if you’d like to get to know Waldensians personally, please send an email to info@waldensian.org
- The Collective Memory of South American Waldensians Is Enriched by New Digital Archives
As part of its celebration of International Archives Week, the Espacio Cultural Valdense (Waldensian Cultural Space) has reaffirmed its commitment to the preservation, processing and dissemination of archives that document the history and cultural and religious life of the Waldensians in the Río de la Plata.
This report was written as a team effort of the Espacio Cultural Valdense and the Communications Secretariat of the Evangelical Waldensian Church in the Rio de la Plata.
To commemorate this date, the Espacio Cultural Valdense is sharing the news of the digitization of the bulletins of the South American Waldensian Historical Society. These 29 volumes were published between August 15, 1935, and August 15, 1963. Each edition contained 60 to 100 pages.
These publications cover topics related to the Waldensian settlement of the Río de la Plata area, migrations, church commemorations and anniversaries, as well as the biographies of pastors and prominent lay people in the Río de la Plata region and in Italy. Information on the founding of some communities and general notes on the history of the Waldensian colonies in the Río de la Plata region can also be found.
The South American Waldensian Historical Society was provisionally founded on March 2, 1926, in Ombúes de Lavalle, Uruguay, following an annual assembly of the Young Men’s Christian Unions. However, it was not until the legally required number of 25 founding members was reached on March 26 that the Society was formally organized in Jacinto Aráuz, Argentina.
As stated in Article 1 of its Statutes – which were published in the first bulletin – “The South American Society of Waldensian History aims to spread knowledge of Waldensian history in the countries of South America through conferences, publications, and a museum.”
Until now, these materials have been only available in paper format. The good news is that now, after a careful process, the bulletins have been digitized and are available for public consultation on the Waldensian Evangelical Church archive’s search page: archivo.iglesia-valdense.org/
This article first appeared on the website of the Evangelical Waldensian Church in the Rio de la Plata. Members and friends of the American Waldensian Society can read this article in the original Spanish at this web address.