Michele Palma 

Michele (Michael) Palma was born in the village of Torremaggiore, Foggia, Italy on 10 October 1884, the son of Leonardo Palma and Maria V. Eccellente. At the time, Torremaggiore was a drought-prone and economically unstable village. The third of four sons, Palma was orphaned at the age of ten. During grade school, he accumulated some finances as an apprentice in the art program. He and his brothers proved artistically talented from an early age. Their musical prowess paved the way for the family to make a new start in the United States, where they migrated in 1909. Palma’s oldest brother, Domenico, served as first trumpet for the San Carlo Opera in Naples, Italy. The second oldest, Silvio, later played percussion for the Boston Symphony. The youngest, Anacleto, was a professor of the oboe and member of the Illinois symphony.

Although musically talented, Palma focused his efforts on developing his trade as a mosaicist. At the age of twenty-five, having saved up enough funds, he emigrated to America, joining two of his brothers in Chicago. There he landed a position with the Marshall Field and Company (now Macy’s) as an interior decorator. After only a few months on American soil, Palma underwent a religious conversion from the Catholicism of his youth. The experience came about through an exchange with Pentecostal church founder Massimiliano (Maximillian) Tosetto. While working together as colleagues at Marshall Field, Tosetto shared his personal testimony with Palma, prompting a life-changing experience, whereby Palma “felt the hand of God reach down and pull him by the jacket toward Himself” (Galvano, 34). Soon after he was baptized by the Italian evangelist Giuseppe Beretta. At the same time as he was pursuing his work as a mosaicist, Palma was ordained as a deacon. He proceeded to enter the ministry, joining a mission on Chicago’s West Grand Avenue known as the Assemblea Cristiana (Christian Assembly).   

Palma met, and on 19 November 1910 married, Caterina (Kathryn) Gardella,. The Gardella family, from Genoa, Liguria, Italy, were among the founding families of the Assemblea Cristiana, Chicago. Together they would have eight children. Palma was summoned by Beretta to join the Pentecostal work in upstate, New York in 1920. He left the same year with his mother and five children to pastor a congregation in Syracuse, First Christian Assembly, where he remained for thirty-eight years. In October 1928, Palma represented the Chicago brethren in Italy, where he (from 19-20 October) he chaired the first general Assembly of Italian Pentecostal Churches.  This was essentially the founding meeting for denominational pentecostalism in Italy. 

In 1953 his growing congregation would construct a church building at Hamilton and Avery Avenue.  Palma retired as pastor in February 1958, handing over to his son Alfred (who had married Esther Tosetto, pastored the Niagara Falls church of his father in law, Massimiliano Tosetto, and a church in Washington, PA).  While shepherding the Syracuse congregation, he worked with Tosetto and Catherina on composing and compiling the Italian Pentecostal hymnal, Nuovo libro d’inni e salmi spirituali [New Book of Hymns and Spiritual Psalms]. The final edition (1959) contained 355 hymns and 16 devotional writings. Palma served as one of the first General Overseers of the Christian Church of North America, founded in Niagara Falls in 1927. He also produced several radio broadcasts. 

Palma continued to serve First Christian and write hymns until his death on 10 October 1963. His first wife and faithful partner in ministry, Kathryn, had died in 1958 in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and Michele remarried later that year to his second wife, Fay Zampi. He was survived by his five sons and three daughters, many of whom went into the ministry and had a significant impact on transatlantic Italian pentecostalism. Their oldest daughter, Leah Lydia (b. 1911) was a pioneer of Sunday School work in Sicily; while Alfred (1914-1993) was at various times a missionary and general superintendent of the CCNA.  Eugene (1917–2008) also spent time in missionary work in Italy and taught art (Oneida High School and at the college level) before entering full-time ministry. He would serve on the executive board of the CCNA (IFCA) and in many other capacities. 

Michele Palma was buried in White Chapel Memory Gardens, DeWitt, NY.

Paul J. Palma

Sources:

Ancestry.com

• BonGiovanni, Guy, Pioneers of the Faith, Farrell, PA: Sound Ministries, 1971.

• DeCaro, L., Our Heritage: The Christian Church of North America, Sharon, PA: CCNA, 1977. 

• Galvano, Stephen, ed., Fiftieth Anniversary: Christian Church of North America, 1927-1977, Sharon, PA: CCNA, 1977.

• Palma, Michele, “Breve storia della chiesa e del mio ministerio: 1920-1945,” in the 25th Anniversary of the Ministry of Pastor and Mrs. Michael Palma, Assemblea Cristiana, Syracuse, NY, 1945.

• Palma, Paul J, Italian American Pentecostalism and the Struggle for Religious Identity, London: Routledge, 2020.

• Toppi, Francesco and Michele Palma, I pioneri del risveglio Pentecostale Italiano, Rome: ADI-Media, 1998.