CIANFORAN (CHAMFORANS), SYNOD OF. — When, in the first half of the sixteenth century, the Protestant movement arose in Germany and Switzerland, the Waldensians (v.), who had already been separated from the Catholic Church for centuries, sent some of their “barba,” or ministers, to those countries, so that they might confer with the Protestant leaders. In 1530 these messengers visited
Guglielmo Farel (1489–1565) at Neuchâtel, Giovanni Ecolampadio (1482–1531) at Basel, and Martin Bucero (1491–1551) at Strasbourg.
Upon returning to their homeland, they presented their views to the Waldensian Synod of 1531, which decided to invite some reformers from neighboring Switzerland to attend the Synod of 1532. In fact, in addition to Farel, Antonio Saunier and Pietro Robert, known as Olivetan, the future translator of the Bible into French, came to the great Synod of C. (12 September 1532), a place near Angrogna. After a long and lively discussion, they persuaded the Waldensians to accept the new doctrines, namely predestination, the uselessness of good works for justification, free confession, the marriage of clerics, and only two Sacraments. At the Synod of Pral the following year, 1533, despite the objections of some who were not in favor of the change, the Protestant doctrines were definitively adopted. With this decision, the Waldensians not only increased their divergence from the Catholic Church but—as the writer Karttunen observes—also allied themselves with a city (Geneva) hostile to the House of Savoy, and this was no small cause of the difficulties and struggles they subsequently experienced with their legitimate sovereigns.