Tullio Vinay

Christianity • Protestantism Tullio Vinay was a Waldensian pastor and theologian, as well as an Italian politician, who was born in La Spezia on May 13, 1909 and died in Rome on September 2, 1996.

During this period, he launched into multiple anti-fascist activities and managed to save dozens of Jews who hid in a secret apartment within the headquarters of the Waldensian church Via Manzoni.

With the support of the World Council of Churches, they were soon joined by young people from different countries who, just a few years before, were fighting each other in a merciless war: Americans, English, Germans, French, etc.

Agapè was a place of meeting, living and working together for young people from different countries but also different religions, including non-believers, in a confrontation where everyone would have to give up their claim of owning the truth, a concept well ahead of its time in 1947.

In 1961, Pastor Vinay gave life to a new great project, this time in the heart of Sicily, in the city of Riesi, where he founded the "Christian service center"[5] to respond to the economic, social and moral misery of the local population and to create an outpost against the Mafia's excessive power.