Henri Arnaud (pastor)

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Henri Arnaud
Monument fountain in Perouse (Württemberg)

Henri Arnaud (born July 15, 1643 in Embrun , France , † September 8, 1721 in Schönenberg ) was a pastor and Waldensian leader .

Life

Arnaud came from a Huguenot family who left France because of the persecution and settled in Val Pellice . After attending school in Torre Pellice and studying theology at the universities of Basel , Geneva and Leiden , he became pastor of the Waldensian Church and worked in Inverso Pinasca in Val Chisone from 1682 . When Duke Viktor Amadeus II of Savoy , under pressure from the French King Louis XIV , gave the Waldensians the order to emigrate in April 1686, Arnaud and his community initially offered resistance. When this was put down, he was able to flee to Germany via Geneva, where he tried to collect the other refugees again. Inspired by Pierre Jurieu's announcement of the downfall of the (Catholic) "Antichrist" for 1689 and politically supported by William of Orange , he led an expedition of around 1000 expatriate Waldensians from Lake Geneva to the Waldensian valleys from August 1689 , which they reached after a two-week march and were able to hold out in a guerrilla struggle that lasted for months, with the forcibly Catholicized locals largely turning to Protestantism again. This event has great significance in the Waldensian historical consciousness as “glorieuse rentrée” or “ Glorioso Rimpatrio ”, although the success was ultimately only due to a sudden change of alliance in Savoy.

When around 3,000 Waldensians were expelled again in 1698, Arnaud led them via Switzerland to Germany, where he was able to negotiate their settlement in their own settlements in Württemberg , Baden-Durlach and Hesse-Darmstadt , which for a long time were linguistically and confessionally independent. From 1699 until his death he himself worked as a pastor in the Waldensian settlements of Dürrmenz (now part of Mühlacker ) and Schönenberg (now part of Ötisheim ). When the Duke of Savoy called the Waldensians for help against France in 1701, Arnaud returned to the valleys for a short time. In 1710 he published a representation of the "Glorioso Rimpatrio" ( Histoire de la glorieuse rentrée des Vaudois dans leur patrie ).

Honors

In several places, e.g. B. in the Palmbach district of Karlsruhe , in Mörfelden-Walldorf , in Rutesheim- Perouse and Schönenberg , there is a Henri-Arnaud-Straße. In Mutschelbach ( Karlsbad municipality ) and in Pforzheim there is a Henri-Arnaud-Weg.

The grave slab of Henri Arnaud is in the Henri Arnaud Church in Schönenberg . The Ötisheim school also bears his name. In the district of Schönenberg, the Henri-Arnaud-Haus is the home of Henri Arnaud, today the museum and library of the German Waldensian Association.

His former rectory was in Mühlacker- Dürrmenz . There a stele and the Waldensian fountain remind of the work of the Waldensian leader. Also in Torre Pellice a monument to Arnaud (a work by the sculptor Davide Calandra , 1856-1915) was erected in 1926 .

literature

Web links

Commons : Henri Arnaud  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Digital Library - Munich Digitization Center. (PDF) Digitized by Arnaud, Henri: Histoire de la glorieuse rentrée des Vaudois. In: bsb-muenchen-digital.de. Retrieved February 10, 2019 .
  2. ^ The Henri-Arnaud-Straße - Waldenserweg Palmbach. In: waldenser.palmbach.org. Retrieved February 10, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Waldensians - German Waldensian Association. In: waldenser.org. Retrieved February 10, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Arnaud, Henri
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French soldier, pastor and Waldensian leader
DATE OF BIRTH July 15, 1643
PLACE OF BIRTH Embrun , France
DATE OF DEATH September 8, 1721
Place of death Schönenberg