Silvio Margadonna

Silvio Margadonna was born on 3 December 1877, at Montescaglioso, in Matera, Basilicata, Italy (other records indicate Potenza). The record is imprecise as to his year of arrival in the USA, but one record indicates 1889. In 1899, having worked to raise the passage and establish himself, Maria Teresa 'Tessie' Leone (1879 – ) arrived in New York from Craco, Matera, on 5 December, aboard the Augusta Victoria. The lack of a marriage certificate in the USA indicates that they may have already been married, though Teresa lists her status as 'single' on migration documents (a term overwritten by an official with the word 'married').

He found work as a labourer, something he continued to do in Warehouses until well into the 1920s. In 1906, when he applied for naturalization, they were living at 73 Roosevelt St., Manhattan. In 1918, when he filled out his draft card, he was a porter for Charles F. Noyes & Co on Wall St.

These locations placed Margadonna in the drawing area of various Protestant missions to Italians. In 1895, among the various other language groups addressed by the Salvation Army, the first Italian Corps was established. (Magnusson and Magnusson, p. 129). Margadonna responded, joining the Corps, where he was remembered as 'a Godly man' (perhaps a reference to the holiness concerns of late 19th century Salvationists and related Wesleyan movements). Margadonna rose up the ranks to Lieutenant.

In 1904, Margadonna recalled that he experienced a vision in which an open Bible rushed toward him from Heaven, towards which his heart also raced, uniting with the Bible. [Bongiovanni 1971] In January 1908, Pietro Ottolini and Giovanni Perrou (from the Assemblea Cristiana in Chicago) responded to what they saw as the voice of the Holy Spirit to evangelize the vast number of Italians in the city through which almost all of them had come - New York. On the way, they passed through Hulberton, N. Y., convincing a number of people there. As Margadonna was a known figure in local Italian Protestant circles, they also visited him. This was a tactically wise move: after all, significant numbers of early pentecostals came from Salvationist and Alliance circles, in part because of the experientialism inherent in their revivalist traditions. Margadonna accepted their message as a fulfilment of his earlier vision and a more perfect was: on 28 February, 1908, he was baptised in the Spirit in his loungeroom. In February, Ottolini and Perrou were followed by Agostino Lencioni from Chicago, who built on the holiness concerns of founders such as Luigi Francescon, rebaptizing those in Hulberton who had believed 'perché non furono stati immersi seconda la Sua Parola'. (Francescon, Fedele Testimonianza) Churches rapidly sprang up among the Italian communities in Buffalo, Holley, and New York City.

Without only elementary school education, Margadonna overcame significant local opposition and even persecution to become ('through much persecution and sacrifice') a significant pioneer and pastor of Italian churches in Brooklyn, Manhattan and the Bronx. He was, however, encouraged by another vision which he kept in memory, this time of a "great multitude of Italian-speaking throng praising the Lord in an open field and himself, carried by the Spirit and placed in their midst to join their 'Glory Chorus' [Bongiovanni 1971]

He founded his first church in 1909 at 23rd and 109th Streets, New York. In 1927, the Italian Christian Church at 188th Street in the Bronx (currently Christian Assembly) was established. In 1934 Margadonna oversaw a church planting mission by a group of women members of the Italian Christian Church at 167th Street and Intervale Avenue. They began evangelism in the Van Nest area, starting with door-to-door witnessing. Within a short period of time, a Friday night prayer meeting was established and space was rented at 1722 Adams Street, the Bronx, New York. His church network were also particularly involved in supporting missions and the fledgling networks in Italy. Roberto Bracco notes (Il Risveglio Pentecostale) that the New York church gave over and above their regular missions offerings through the CCNA.

Margadonna remained pastor of the 188th Street church until he died in Brooklyn on 10 December, 1956. His wife, Maria Teresa died the next year, on 10 September 1957.

Children:

• Leonora Maria Lucia (4 Aug 1901 - ).

• Pasquale (Patsy) (1902 - )

• Anthony

• Michelina (1906 – ), m. Michael Maccarino.

• Dominick (4 Jan 1909, - 20 April 2004), m. Matilda Limone.

• John (1915–2005)

Sources:

• Ancestry

Magnuson, Norris and Beverly Magnuson, Salvation in the Slums: Evangelical Social Work 1865-1920, Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2004.