Long since defunct are the Cathari, the Patarini, the Albigenses, many another sect denounced as heretical by the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages. But the heretic Waldensian Church, born of social and religious restlessness in the 12th Century, still exists as the world's oldest evangelical Christian body. It was founded by Peter Waldo, a rich Lyons merchant who vowed himself to poverty, defied the Pope by preaching and interpreting the Bible in 1179. Excommunicated along with numerous other heretics in 1184, he attracted a following who believed with him that it...
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