Pastor Sergio Ribet left us

Rome (NEV / Riforma.it), January 11, 2020 – In the night between Monday 6 and Tuesday 7 of  January, the pastor Sergio Ribet passed away in San Germano Chisone: at the end of January he would have turned 76 years old.
Consecrated in 1971, the main stages of his pastoral ministry saw him in Sicily, in Pachino, and then, until the end of the decade, in the Waldensian church of Turin. In the meantime he had been the second secretary of the Italian Protestant Youth Federation (Fgei), founded in 1969. Those have been years of great commitment also in the political, cultural and ecumenical life of the town: a fundamental part of this activity were the meetings with the Catholicism of dissent, the grassroots communities, the Turin editorial staff of the magazine Com – Nuovi tempi (today Confronti), and the work among young people.
In this time Sergio Ribet wrote one of  his most important books, The knot of the Lebanese conflict between the Palestinian resistance and the Maronite right (Claudiana, 1977), one of the very first texts published in Italy on the subject.
The successive stages of his ministry took him to the Pellice Valleys, in Rorà (1981-1986): a period in which Ribet was also active in the editorial staff of the weekly L ‘Eco delle valli valdesi – La luce, which was printed in Torre Pellice. The first trip to the churches and the works of the Rio de la Plata also dates back to this period. Starting with the summer of 1986 he directed the center of Agape, during the period of the expansion of the central block and the renewal of the kitchen.
The following stages led him to the church of Pomaretto (including in those years also a pastoral exchange in Uruguay with the pastor Cabrera), and to the election as member of the Waldensian Board in the first half of the 1990s. The last pastoral position, however, was the Methodist church of Bologna. He retired in 2011.
His presence in the Pinerolo area also led him, among other things, to the  commitment in civil society, and precisely in the field of home care, in cooperation with the association “La Bottega del possible” (Torre Pellice).
To the daughter Elena Ribet, our colleague of the NEV Press Agency, and to all her family, the embrace and the most heartfelt condolences from all the editorial staff.