Kurt-Victor Selge

21/04/2022

On April 5, Kurt-Victor Selge, a distinguished professor of the history of Christianity, first at the Kirchliche Hochschule and then, after 1990, at the Humboldt-Universität in Berlin, passed away at the age of 89. His ties to the Waldensian Church were twofold: Selge had spent a year studying at the Waldensian Faculty of Theology; subsequently, Waldensianism and early Waldensianism were one of the fields of research in which he demonstrated his scholarly expertise. Selge's monograph on Durando da Huesca is to this day an indispensable reference work in this field, but he also published essays in Italian in the journal Protestantism. From an interpretative point of view, he successfully revived the importance of free preaching in Valdesio's work, re-dimensioning the purely pauperistic aspect that allows us to relate him to Francis of Assisi. By collaborating with Italian and German medievalists, Selge also contributed to the acquisition of a recognized scientific status for research on Waldensianism.