The Italian Baptist Union has elected a woman pastor as president for the first time.
Anna Maffei, co-pastor of Chiesa Battista in Naples, is the first female to serve as president of the Union, which held its annual general assembly in Rome, Oct. 7-10. Virginia Baptists have close ties to the union through a missions partnership.
Also at the October meeting, the union renewed a 1990 fellowship agreement with the Waldensians/
Methodists, the largest Protestant body in Italy. The Waldensians/Methodists represent 35,000 of the country's 60,000 Protestants.
The agreement was renewed despite differences over baptism, which Waldensians/Methodists administer to infants. Maffei said fellowship “weighs heavier” than understandings of baptism. She said the union determined that the personal faith of church members, not baptism, is to form the basis of any fellowship agreement.
The union decided that if a person baptised by the Waldensians or Methodists as an infant requests believer's baptism, as practiced by Baptists, then this is to be regarded not as a re-baptism, but rather as a baptism in New Testament terms. But in order to gain membership in a Baptist congregation, a Waldensian/Methodist is not required to be baptised as a believer. An official application is sufficient.
The 1990 agreement offers pastors the opportunity to minister in Waldensian/Methodist congregations as well as Baptist ones. But Maffei said, “A Baptist pastor working in a Waldensian congregation will never be asked to baptise an infant.”
The Italian Baptist Union numbers 4,500 members in 108 congregations, including 28 foreign language ones, including congregations for Brazilians, Chinese, Eritreans, Ghanians, Koreans, Latin Americans, Nigerians and Filipinos.
Special to the Herald