JANNI, Uco. – Writer and religious agitator, born in 1869 at L'Aquila in the Abruzzi, died at San Remo on 30 July 1938. Ordained priest in Bern by the Old Catholic bishop Herzog in 1893, he later began his work in Italy with the two apostates Savarèse and Campello, who were later reconciled with the Church. In 1902 he joined the Waldensian Church and settled in San Remo, where he remained, with only brief absences, until his death. He was the director and principal writer of the monthly journal *Fede e vita*, which ceased publication in 1937. Considered an Old Catholic, he not only aided Campello’s schismatic movement (v.), but in his writings his adherence to the doctrines of Herzog and his Bern professor Michaud occasionally appears. He played a notable part in 1937 at the meeting of the “Italian Evangelical League for the Elevation of Worship,” and wrote numerous liturgical pamphlets on Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and public worship.
A Waldensian by free choice and deliberate will (cf. *Il rinnovamento cattolico dell'Italia e la missione del valdese*, in *Pinerolo 1932*), he worked extensively for that church; together with Ernesto Comba he compiled the *Manuale-compendio delle verità fondamentali del cristianesimo* (Torre Pellice 1931). Like Beckwith before him, he cherished the idea of bringing the Waldensians back to the pre-Cianforan Synod (v.) doctrines, which were more liturgical and less exclusive than those professed after that Synod. Yet what made J. famous was his being the principal and tireless promoter of the pancristian movement (v.) in Italy, to which he remained faithful until his death.
Besides the works already mentioned, J.’s writings include: *Il problema dell'evangelizzazione in Italia* (Florence 1905); *Catechismo filosofico sulle fondamentali dottrine del cristianesimo* (ibid. 1906); *I valori cristiani e la cultura moderna* (Mendrisio 1913); *La S. Chiesa cattolica e i suoi rapporti con la verità evangelica nella realtà e nella visione pancristiana* (Pinerolo 1929); *Teosofia* (Turin 1932); *Corpus Domini* (Modena 1938).