AEMI

202 AEMI JOURNAL 2015 2016
Fig. 1 From the twinning celebrations in Pragelato, the homeland of German Waldensians.
their lands cultivable and improve their
financial condition. This is why they
accorded to the Waldensians some privileges,
such as the freedom to practice
their religion, or to speak French.
After the French Revolution, a period
of secularization started also in Germany.
One of the last laws of the Holy
Roman Empire, which at that time included
the German land, unified many
domains that had previously been separate
religious units. The result was the
unification of the Protestants churches:
Lutherans and Reformed. In this context,
Waldensians were assimilated to
the united churches: they lost their
specific liturgy and began to speak German
instead of French. The end of the
nineteenth century witnessed a renewed
interest in the Waldensian past and the
establishment of close links between the
German communities and the Waldensian
communities of the Valleys, that
increased after World War I. In 1936
there was the creation of the Deutsche
Waldenservereinigung, the Association of
German Waldensians 3 , whose purposes
were to support the relationship between
the German Waldensians and to
preserve Waldensian past and traditions.
For my research, I focused on one
German Waldensian community: the
Waldensergemeinde Rohrbach-Wembach-Hahn,
in Hessen, about 50 km