Tempio Valdese di Roma

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Waldensian temple, Piazza Cavour

The Tempio Valdese di Roma ( Waldensian Church of Rome ) is a Protestant church in Rome on the Piazza Cavour in the Rione Prati . It was built between 1911 and 1913, along with a theological faculty and student residence. A church building of the Evangelical Waldensian Church in Rome had already existed since 1887 with the church on Via IV Novembre .

Church building

Pope Pius X tried to prevent the new building and therefore intervened several times with the then mayor of Rome, Ernesto Nathan . The only requirement that the Waldensian community had to agree to was the naming of their church as a “temple”; the name church should be reserved for Roman Catholic sacred buildings.

The neo-Romanesque, two-tower church was built using reinforced concrete, which was innovative at the time of construction. The facade faces St. Peter's Square. From the outside, the building is clearly identifiable as a church, but also as non-Catholic.

The tympanum above the entrance shows the coat of arms of the Waldensians , a burning candle on a candlestick, surrounded by seven stars, and the inscription: Lux lucet in tenebris “The light shines in the darkness” ( Jn 1,5  LUT ).

When you enter, the difference to a Roman Catholic church becomes obvious: “Style, colors, message, everything is unusual.” The interior is committed to Art Nouveau and was designed by Paolo Antonio Paschetto . He also created the stained glass windows and the large apse mosaic. In the apse, the gaze is drawn to the central, red cross, which is surrounded by ribbons of ornament and writing.

Pulpit altar and organ are arranged in one axis opposite the entrance. This corresponds to the recommendations of the Wiesbaden program . There are galleries in the aisles. The organ is the work of the Turin organ builder Carlo Vegezzi Bossi.

The glass windows are a particularly valuable part of the church building. There are windows with geometric motifs, with floral motifs and a cycle of glass windows with pictorial representations, each in connection with a suitable Italian Bible word: anchor, lamb, peacock, eagle, lily, dove, seven-armed candlestick , vine, Christ monogram , burning thorn bush , Lighthouse, Good Shepherd , Communion Table , and Noah's Ark .

List of pastors

  • Paolo Bosio: 1927 to 1948
  • Roberto Comba: 1948 to 1961
  • Carlo Gay: 1961 to 1968
  • Alberto Ribet: 1968 to 1975
  • Franco Sommani: 1975 to 1990
  • Maria Bonafede : 1990 to 2003
  • Antonio Adamo: since 2003

Web links

Commons : Tempio Valdese di Roma  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Thomas Migge: End of Heresy. Retrieved November 15, 2018 .
  2. ↑ a b c Il tempio valdese di piazza Cavour. In: Chiesa Evangelica Valdese di Piazza Cavour, Roma. Retrieved November 15, 2018 .

Coordinates: 41 ° 54 ′ 22.3 "  N , 12 ° 28 ′ 15"  E