From Breach to Breach: Encouraging Progress in Rome
Leonardo is pastor of Breccia di Roma church, Vice Chairman of the Italian Evangelical Alliance, and Lead Mentor of our Rome learning community. In this encouraging update, he shares how God is opening doors for the gospel in Rome.
The two first graduates of the UST Learning Community in Rome (2017-2018) are at the forefront in leading two promising church planting projects in two historic Italian cities. Michel in Pisa and Daniele in Verona are only two of the many students who received training from UST in Rome and who are serving in churches throughout the country. This academic year the Learning Community not only runs the GDip programme (with Clay Kannard as Lead Mentor) but for the first time also the MTh Programme with two Italian students taking it. These developments are most encouraging. Together with the theological training in Italian provided by IFED for the last 28 years (20 students taking it in Rome; 100 students in Padova, Milan and Caltanissetta), solid theological training is becoming readily available for Italian evangelical students.
While we are grateful for what God is doing through Union in Rome there are also encouragements in the life of the church Breccia di Roma.
On the 20th of September 1870, 150 years ago, the Italian army breached the wall surrounding Rome near the ancient port known as Porta Pia. On that day men flooded into the city and claimed Rome as the capital of the nation. The breach of Rome brought change for the city. As the Pope’s territory was pushed back to the Vatican, so was the Roman church’s oppressive grip on the biblical Gospel of grace that began to enter the city unthreatened by the Pope. Just behind the Italian army where men known as “colportori”, mobile book venders who carried copies of the Holy Bible that had been translated into the Italian language by the Italian reformer Giovanni Diodati 250 years prior to the breach of Rome.
To mark the anniversary the church put together an interesting program including a photographic exhibition, an open air service, public presentations of books and the Reformation walk offered to the public. You can read a full report by Clay Kannard here: “From breach to breach”, Evangelical Focus (21 Sept 2020).
On the 19th of September 2020, the church Chiesa Evangelica Breccia di Roma celebrated this historic event with the inauguration of a photographic/documentary art exhibit. Hosted in the historic city center of Rome, the exhibit “Da breccia a breccia” (from breach to breach) recounts the story of how Rome began to experience new religious liberties 150 years ago (from breach) and the ways in which God has allowed the Gospel to advance in the city thus far (to breach). The exhibit will remain open to the public until November 1st, 2020.
Then on the 20th of September 2020, several evangelical churches gathered together in the open near Piazza Venezia to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the breach of Rome. The celebration was a time of public worship filled with singing, preaching and testifying about the good news of God’s grace and the forgiveness that is freely available to all who would repent of their sins and look to Jesus Christ alone for their salvation.
These events provided good opportunities to establish our presence in Rome, to invite our friends and to encourage the church to look at the challenge before us with confidence in God. He is able to open doors for the gospel in the city and we are here to be used to this end.
Leonardo De Chirico