Waldensian Church

The temple was inaugurated on April 11, 1894, but yet in September 1889 was attended as the kindergarten and primary schools. The bell tower includes a cast bell in Cincinnati, in 1893.

The founder of the Evangelical Church was called Luigi Angelini, and he was born in Forano in 1847; after studying with the Capuchin fathers and became assistant pastor of the country, he developed the desire to leave what he had in the Catholic church.

After living difficult moments and misery because of his choice, Luigi Angelini married a young American Presbyterian, Arabella Chapmann, and thanks to contacts and travel in the United States was able to raise the necessary funds to put in 1889 the foundation stone of the church.

Angelini also opened in Forano a Christian Society of Mutual Assistance and arranged to establish the schools, allowing Catholics and evangelicals to achieve a primary school certificate.

To give greater stability to the community he founded, Luigi Angelini, after at first had joined the Free Church of Gavazzi and once begun its decline, decided to tie it to the Waldensian Church (1901).

Angelini died in 1919, his wife Arabella Chapmann survived until 1953, and during this long period did a lot for Forano population, especially during the Second World War.

The church, in its architectural lines, reflects the simplicity and sobriety of distinctive Evangelism that does not need special places or temples; the locals are not consecrated, the “church” is not the place but the population of believers; a pulpit and a wooden table are sufficient to meet the Eucharist because it is not a sacrifice but a commemoration, not in need of an altar or keeping the hosts.