Alberto Clot

Clot was born in Riclaretto Perrero, Piemonte, the third child of Antoine Clot-Varice (1847-1923) and Henriette Peyronel (1851-1920). Educated at the local denominational school, he progressed to the Scuola Latina di Pomaretto and the Collegio Valdese di Torre Pellice. From there he followed the trends in the Italianization of Waldensianism, transferring to the Facoltà Valdese di Teologia in Firenze, with a year abroad in Edinburgh studying English.

In 1900 he was sent to minister in Nizza (Nice), assisting Augusto Giovanni Malan with the Italian community there. In May that year he was transferred to Vittoria (Ragusa), as co-pastor with Luigi Rostagno, followed by a time in Messina replacing Giovanni Daniele Buffa. This movement between locations was trying, and he spent some time in Napoli (Naples) recovering before returning to Firenze, where he finished his studies in March 1901. In April of that year, he was sent to Rio Marina, where he was substituting for Bartolomeo Soulier. Ordained in September 1901, he was then sent by the Comitato di Evangelizzazione to Palermo as co-pastor, first with Arturo Muston and then with Francesco Rostan. While there, he worked to establish a "Scuola tecnica", while also running the Sunday School and with youth work. From 1902 he began visiting the little Protestant community in Trapani, which was at the time under the care of the colporteur-evangelist Gioacchino Arnao. He also continued to study, taking a degree in languages at l'Università di Palermo, receiving a teaching certificate in both French and English as foreign languages.

In 1903 he married Maria Lo Cicero, teacher at the Waldensian School in Palermo and Caltanissetta, with whom he had five children: Oscar, Lidia, Walter, Ester e Valdo. That year he was transferred to Grotte (Agrigento). In the five years he spent there, he had to face not only a profound crisis that was endangering the survival of local sulphur mines but widespread emigration of young people and families to North America. Clot met the needs of local people by founding a medical dispensary for the treatment of problems caused by sulphur fumes, two Christian youth associations and a society for the care of emigrants, of which he became president. He worked extensively in evangelism, from 1904 cooperating with the colporteur Giuseppe Licata in educational and evangelistic outreaches in Agrigento, Porto Empedocle, Favara, Racalmuto and Palma di Montechiaro. Many of these locations would become key birthing points for Sicilian pentecostalism in the 1920s.

In October 1908 Clot sent as official representative of the Waldensian Church to Canada and the United States, a post held until his death. Passing through London, he addressed the Free Church Council on the history and growth of Waldensianism in Italy (Primitive Methodist Leader 12 March 1908, p. 177). Moving to Rochester (New York), he dedicated himself to the creation of an Italian-speaking community, composed mainly of evangelicals of Sicilian origin, particularly those from Grotte. With help from the Brick Presbyterian Church in New York, in July 1909 he was among the founders of the Italian Waldensian Presbyterian "Church of the Evangel" in Rochester, New York, pastored by Giovannino Tron (previously based at Poughkeepsie).

From 1910 he collaborated with the Giovanni Pons (of Barthélemy) and Filippo Enrico Ghigo to build a Waldensian community in New York, under the guidance of the pastor Pietro Griglio. At the same time as he was working to establish the Italian Presbyterian Mission in Reed (Pennsylvania) and the Italian Branch of the Mount Olivet Memorial Church in New York, and visiting the various Waldensian emigrants scattered throughout the North American continent, Clot was one of the key figures of the American Waldensian Aid Society. He made inroads into the Protestant elite of New York in particularly, forming a close relationship with Emma Baker Kennedy, the wife of John Stewart Kennedy, the banking and finance magnate and sometime business partner of Morris Ketchum Jesup, whose philanthropy supported Italian-related works at the Five Points Mission and the New York City Mission and Tract Society. Founding the Italian arm of the American Waldensian Aid Society, Clot established the Patronato Italo-Americano per la Protezione degli emigranti e immigrati italiani under its aegis.

A prolific writer, throughout his life he collaborated with several newspapers of the Italian and American evangelical press, also publishing in 1913 a guide for emigrants of Italian origin, printed in over twenty thousand copies. He became pastor of the Italian-speaking community of the Charlton Street Memorial Presbyterian Church in New York, and died there on September 15, 1916. He was buried at Mount Olivet Cemetery, Maspeth, NY.

Clot's wife, Maria "Gangi" LoCicero (b. 1877, Palermo, Sicily), died in Miami, FA, in 1958; His oldest child, Oscar Albert (b. 6 Aug 1904, Caltanissetta, Sicily, - d. 31 Mar 1974, Miami, FA, m. Wilma B. nee Chesnutt, 1911-1994, 3 children) became a successful engineer, and carried on the common Waldensian tradition of Scottish Rite freemasonry. Though Esther died young in New York, all the other children: Lydia (1907-1975), Walter (1909-1993), Robert (1913-1983) also moved to Florida, Lydia marrying Fred Pahls.

Sources:

Luca Pilone, 'Alberto Clot', Dizionario Biografico dei protestanti in Italia. http://www.studivaldesi.org/dizionario/evan_det.php?secolo=XX&evan_id=470, accessed 23 May, 2020.

Works

Clot, A., Guida e consigli per gli emigranti italiani negli Stati Uniti e nel Canada, New York, American Waldensian Aid Society, 1913.

Clot, A. 'Benjamin de Joux: A Waldensian pastor in Virginia, 1700-1703', Journal of the Presbyterian Historical Society 8, (1915-1916), pp. 94-96.

Clot, A. 'Waldenses', New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, XII, p. 241.

Other sources:

Comba, E., 'Prof. Alberto Clot', La Luce 41 (12 Oct 1916)

Griglio, P., 'Albert Clot', L'Écho des Vallées 42 (20 Oct 1916).

Naso, P., 'Il protestantesimo in Italia tra emigrazione e immigrazione', Cristiani d'Italia, Istituto della enciclopedia italiana, 2011.

Salvaggio, R., Vivere il Vangelo in minoranza. Breve storia dei valdesi a Palermo, Trapani, Il Pozzo di Giacobbe, 2005.

Tron, E.E., 'Le Prof. Albert Clot, pasteur vaudois', L'Écho des Vallées 43 (27 Oct 1916).

Vinay, V. Storia dei valdesi III. Dal movimento evangelico italiano al movimento ecumenico (1848-1978), Torino, Claudiana, 1980.spazio

Watts, G. B., The Waldensians in the New World, Durham, Duke University Press, 1941.