What did the Waldensians preach?

Question

These were a group of people, who beleived in total poverty and applied for their order to be accepted by the Church in the middle ages, but weren't accepted as an order.

Answer 1

The Waldensians, Waldenses or Vaudois are a Christian denomination believing in poverty and austerity, founded around 1173, promoting true poverty, public preaching and the literal interpretation of the scriptures. Declared heretical, the movement was brutally persecuted during the 12th and 13th centuries and nearly totally destroyed, but the Waldensian Church survives to this day.

There are two prevailing theories about the identity and origin of the Waldensians. Some Waldenses, and other groups seeking to trace their history through the Waldenses, claim that the Waldenses history extends back to the apostolic church, while the mainstream academic view is that the Waldensians were followers of Peter Waldo (or Valdes or Vaudes).

Answer 2

The members of the group were declared schismatics in 1184 in France and heretics more widely in 1215 by the Fourth Council of the Lateran's anathema. The rejection by the Church radicalized the movement; in terms of ideology the Waldensians became more obviously anti-Catholic - rejecting the authority of the clergy, declaring any oath to be a sin, claiming anyone could preach and that the Bible alone was all that was needed for salvation, and rejecting the concept of purgatory and the idea of relics and icons.

Their tenets reveals that the heirs of Waldo considered themselves the true representatives of the apostolic Christian church, that statues and decorations were superfluous, that their obedience was to God, not to prelates, of whom the pope was the chief source of errors, and that no one is greater than another in the church.

Answer 3

Nice to know.