Early Protesters Against Rome

The leading territory, or headquarters, of the Waldenses was in the region of the Alps, in northern Italy and southern France. The most central and prominent place of location seems to have been in the valleys of Piedmont along the southern foothills of the Alps. According to these authorities, the gospel had first been preached, and churches established, in all that region by preachers of the early centuries. From the churches in northern Italy the Church of Rome met decided protests. Says Wylie:AGP 207.2

“The country in which we find the earliest of these protesters is Italy. The See of Rome, in those days, embraced only the capital and the surrounding provinces. The diocese of Milan, which included the plain of Lombardy, the Alps of Piedmont, and the southern provinces of France, greatly exceeded it in extent. It is an undoubted historical fact that this powerful diocese was not then tributary to the papal chair. ‘The bishops of Milan,’ says Pope Pelagius I (555), ‘do not come to Rome for ordination.’” “The History of Protestantism,” J. A. Wylie, LL.D., Vol. I, pp. 18, 19. London, Paris, and New York: Cassell Petter & Galpin.

That there were flourishing churches in northern Italy in the fourth century is evident, for Ambrose was elected Bishop of Milan in 374 A. D. Wylie comments:AGP 208.1

“His [Ambrose’s] theology, and that of his diocese, was in no essential respects different from that which Protestants hold today…. Rufinus, of Aquileia, first metropolitan in the diocese of Milan, taught substantially the same doctrine in the fifth century.” Id., p. 20.